Form and Light by Claire Kahn

Artist list

Claire Kahn

Claire Kahn’s life and work were rooted in a deep understanding of how parts become whole. She was a meticulous maker, of spaces, of patterns, and of meaning. She found poetry in structure and beauty in transition. Her art, whether in two dimensions or woven in three, is not static. It shimmers, shifts, and breaths. This retrospective, Form and Light brings together a wide range of her creative depth: drawings, collages, layered papercuts, and her intricate beaded crochet jewelry. Together, they o]er a portrait of an artist whose primary material, beyond ink, beads, or paper, is light.

Throughout her life, Kahn drew from a rich family history steeped in fine art and design. Raised in the Bay Area, she was the daughter of Matt Kahn, a renowned art professor at Stanford, and Lyda Kahn, a designer and master weaver. Her grandmother, Anneke Vos-Van Thyn, a Dutch artist and principal designer with the De Stijl movement, passed down a legacy of crafted based abstraction. Claire absorbed it all. As a child, she turned everyday materials—pumpkins, shells, agates—into playful studies in form and texture. That early joy in making never left her.

Kahn’s work reflects a lifetime of observation: peacock feathers from her childhood in Cambodia, the rhythmic pattern of stone in historical Tuscan buildings, the layered transparency of Venetian glass. Each influence became part of her vocabulary. But it was never mimicry, it was synthesis. Kahn had a gift for weaving the visual languages of memory, geography, and design into something uniquely her own.

Form and Light speaks to the foundation of Kahn’s practice. Her work was built upon essential principles: form, line, pattern, and, above all, light. But it reflects her commitment to eliminating the unnecessary. She allows the essential to speak. Whether abstract or representational, her compositions are never cluttered; they reveal a clarity of thought and an economy of gesture that creates space for something more to enter, something transcendent.


Her two-dimensional works display a rigor. Often composed of layered paper, precise ink lines, or hand-cut forms, they balance the graphic with the ephemeral. Many feel architectural, echoing her early career as a designer for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where she worked on major projects like the Davies Symphony Hall and Miami’s Southeast Financial Center. Later, as Executive Designer for WET Design, she choreographed fountains as if they were dances, sculpting water and music into fluid spectacle. The idea that form and rhythm can be felt physically is present in all her later visual work.

Kahn’s jewelry reveals a more intimate side. More than adornments, they are compositions of color and light, completed only when worn. Each piece is constructed bead by bead, a study in color gradation, texture, and touch. Kahn brought to bead crochet a dancer’s rhythm and a painter’s hand. Like stained glass or Venetian millefiori, another of her lifelong inspirations, her jewelry doesn’t rely on pigment alone; it transforms light itself into color.


This exhibition includes select personal artifacts, sketches, collected objects, and tools, offering an intimate look into the making behind the mastery. They are meditations on how parts become whole, how light reveals structure, how clarity can be quietly profound. As you move through the gallery, a single thread reveals itself: the transformation of the parts into the extraordinary.

In memory of Claire Ruth Kahn
Artist. Designer. Maker of light.



Opening Reception on Friday, December 5 at Patina Gallery, with a reception from 5 to 7pm.
Opening hours: 3 - 31 October 2025. Monday - Sunday, 11am - 5pm.


About Patina Gallery:
Patina gallery was established in 1999 on historic West Palace Avenue in the heart of Santa Fe’s Museum District. Since its founding, Patina has become one of the most beautiful galleries in the world to exhibit exclusive, soul-stirring contemporary jewelry and objects of fine art, representing more than 75 renowned global artists, many of whom reside in the permanent collections of significant American and international museums. We believe Patina = Beauty over Time describes the quality we seek in the works that we exhibit, awe-inspiring work by master craftspeople who are museum-worthy, studio makers from around the world.