NEW YORK — Almost all artists are intrigued by alternative lifestyles, and Walt Kuhn (1877-1949) was no exception. He painted bold and psychologically charged portraits of circus and vaudeville performers that still resonate though vaudeville is extinct and the circus might soon join it.

Kuhn was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was fascinated with show performers and the entertainment industry. His mother reportedly introduced him to art and theater as a young child, and he attended countless performances of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. He once secured a press pass to its Madison Square Garden performances, allowing him wide access to the performers backstage. This helped give his portraits more of an intimate look, such as in an oil-on-canvas painting of a ruddy-cheeked red-headed acrobat that attained $50,000 plus the buyer’s premium in February 2018 at Clars Auction Gallery.

According to the Sullivan Goss gallery’s website, “For the remainder of his life, employment in the entertainment industry acted as a second career and source of income for the artist. More importantly, it provided limitless inspiration for his canvases.” Shortly before he was institutionalized in 1948, he had even hoped to launch an open-air venue for circus and show business acts in Ogunquit, Maine, close to his studio in Cape Neddick, where he summered.

Kuhn rode a wave of American Modernism that took off shortly after the famous 1913 Armory Show in New York, which he helped organize. A prolific artist who created some 3,000 studies and paintings in his lifetime, he is best known for his oil portraits of performers. He often painted sitters from real life, though sometimes he relied on models. His subjects have a strong frontal gaze and are pictured without all the trappings of the circus in order to focus attention on the person.

“There’s not a lot of people who can get away with painting these outlandish characters and having them bring big money, but that’s really where he brings his big money,” said Jeremy Fogg, a fine art consultant at Barridoff Auctions in South Portland, Maine. “His landscapes bring a fraction of what his performers bring. He created this fascination with that circus lifestyle.”

In his portraits, he removes the performers from the stage and sets them against a monochromatic backdrop, usually painted in jewel-like tones of greens, reds, or purples, and sometimes white or black. Instead of delighting the audience with a performance, his sitters adopt solemn facial expressions. Some even look downcast or angry, perhaps illustrating to viewers the hardships they faced in life.

The deep shadowing in a 1947 portrait, Contralto, adds to its emotional intensity, and the heavy makeup the sitter wears appears more like a mask to dissuade the viewer from getting to know her. The portrait earned $42,500 plus the buyer’s premium in March 2022 at Barridoff Auctions.

While his oil portraits bring the most money, Kuhn’s watercolors and works on paper perform well, with several commanding $20,000 to $40,000. A 1927 watercolor portrait, The Tumbler, took $21,000 plus the buyer’s premium in August 2021 at Barridoff Auctions. Dressed in a one-piece blue costume with a sash around his waist, the performer adopts a slightly jaunty stance and defensively crosses his arms in front of him.

Kuhn didn’t just paint performers, however. His subjects also included still lifes and landscapes, which also find favor with buyers. A 1944 seascape oil on canvas of his brought $23,000 plus the buyer’s premium in August 2021 at Barridoff Auctions. Images of waves crashing against the rocky shore is a perennially popular subject with New England audiences.

Fogg said the auction market has recorded a wide range of prices for Kuhn’s works, from a $1.5 million portrait of a circus performer that sold in 2021 at Christie’s to quick sketches and small drawings that can bring about $1,000. “It really depends, there’s just a big jump. There is a lot of work out there for him,” he said. “He did a lot of works on paper that people love, little sketches where he is doing the same figures, but really quick and moving fast. Because there are people who want to get into his market at every level, those pieces find their way onto the market.”

Among his paintings that are accessible to new collectors are his still lifes of flowers, which he painted in a slightly more traditional manner. An example realized $4,500 plus the buyer’s premium in February 2024 at Freeman’s Hindman.

Kuhn watercolors also appear at reasonable prices, particularly those that do not depict his signature subject matter. A watercolor and ink drawing titled Indian Brave on Horseback sold for $1,400 plus the buyer’s premium in May 2022 at Freeman’s Hindman. While born in New York, he actually started his career as an illustrator in San Francisco, California. Traveling out west, he was taken with the landscape and even created a series titled An Imaginary History of the West, which was inspired in part by the Western novels he read.

Despite a lack of attention across the years  — the last major Walt Kuhn exhibition was a retrospective at the DC Moore Gallery in 2013, commemorating the centennial of the Armory Show —  prices for Kuhn’s work have been strong recently. “I do think he’s having a little moment in the sun right now,” Fogg said.