KAHAN, LOUIS

KAHAN, LOUIS (1905–2002), Australian portraitist. Kahan, who was born in Vienna, originally studied tailoring and dress design. He showed a talent for portraiture and this was fostered during World War II, when as a member of the French Foreign Legion, he painted regimental murals and portraits. When the Americans landed in North Africa, Kahan became a war artist, sketching wounded soldiers of the Allied armies. After the war he was appointed staff artist to the French newspaper Le Figaro. He immigrated to Australia in 1951 and settled in Melbourne, where he sketched famous personalities for the literary magazine Meanjin, and for the weekend literary section of the Age newspaper. In 1981 he published Australian Writers: The Face of Literature. Kahan is represented in the National Gallery of each of the six states of Australia. -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Klepac, Louis Kahan (1990). (Shmuel Gorr)