Kevin Kadar (February 3, 1955 – January 6, 2026)
We are deeply saddened to confirm that artist Kevin Kadar has died of natural causes after a brief medical battle. Kevin was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut to Emil and Sophia Kadar. He was preceded in death by his parents, a brother, one niece and one nephew. He is survived by many who loved him. Kadar was immensely talented, thoroughly inspired, genuinely gracious and kind, and he was absolutely, deeply passionate about making paintings, looking at paintings and talking about paintings. This is a great loss and we will miss him dearly. He had an infectious and absolute love of painting, visual story telling with all of its facets from pigment nuances to textures. He was exceedingly articulate and kind. Kadar and I began working together in 1994 at Jamison Thomas Gallery, and he was one of the first artists to join my gallery when I opened in 1995. In 2025 we began planning an exhibit of his exuberant, brand-new painting series for this Spring of 2026; that is briefly on hold until his estate is completed. We are working with Kadar's family to support that process and will announce details about a commemoration gathering to remember Kevin, and an exhibition celebrating his life and work as soon as we are able. His new paintings are stunning and brilliant; it will be a thrill and honor to present them.
Since his first show with the Froelick Adelhart Gallery in October of 1996, Figures have remained an important subject in Kadar’s work. Over thirty years of representation he painted more than 1500 figure studies, carefully labeling each one of them sequentially. Work would come into the gallery carefully documented with names - often of reoccurring models from the life drawing sessions he would attend. Kadar would always give acknowledgment to the models he worked with, in later years even using their names in some of his titles. Figures and landscapes were an important and reoccurring theme in his paintings. They were symbols for his emotional and mental grindings. Some offer an unflinching glimpse into the dark side, while others hand out quiet repose.
1998 marked a transition in medium and color. Now influenced by recent travels in France and Italy, Kadar’s work started to include oils in the final stages his acrylic paintings. His previously trichromatic palette began to expand to include fiery oranges and deep cerulean blues. In October of 1998 Kadar received a Betty Bowen Award of Special Recognition from the Seattle Art Museum. Over the next five years the content of Kadar’s work would shift again. His solo exhibition in march of 2003 exhibited several works which Kadar noted as “imagined." These paintings were directed not purely by his physical observations but his thoughts and dreams.
Over his career Kadar frequently traveled between Portland and western Europe. He lived and worked in Paris, at times in ‘squats’ crowded amidst many other artists for months on end. In 2001 Kadar wrote “We’re all in the same boat, Struggling to get shows and meet gallery owners… Its worth it. I’m in Paris, I’m working and I’m not alone.” During his travels throughout Western Europe, Kadar found inspiration and kinship with the landscape masters, painters such as Constable, Turner and Corot. Studying their work in the museums of France, Italy and Portugal, Kadar adopted many of their approaches: theatrical lighting, intense weather phenomena and dramatic composition take precedence over direct observation and literal documentation.
In 2005 Kadar’s work shifted again. This new direction in his work was marked by a notable lack of human figures or recognizable landscapes. The ephemeral backgrounds familiar to his paintings started to take a stage of their own. Around this time Kadar started to paint on envelopes. In August 2005 Kadar wrote “I didn’t want to write letters, so instead I would paint on the envelope. Whoever received the empty envelope would understand that the painting was intended as the letter,”
Despite constantly moving, Kadar always found the time to quiet his mind and surroundings in order to paint exquisite landscapes, soulful figures and meditations. In 2009 he wrote “I’ve done so many landscapes. I just think about the paint, brushstrokes, and automatically the paintings come out looking like a penetration of the surface, often with great distance.” He continues,“Being influenced by my travels, these landscapes reflect the regions where I have spent time, but also allow my imagination to further an internal journey with terrain much less certain.”
In 2015 Kevin Kadar had his 10th solo exhibition at the Froelick Gallery “Portals and Puzzles.” The year prior he ‘relocated’ his painting studio to a larger space with more light. The paintings in this exhibit were an amalgamation of his previous bodies of work. Now reflecting on his 20 plus years of exploring, he felt pleased to return to a direction of painting that he believed had the potential to present the viewer with solutions both challenging and poetic. In his 2015 statement, Kadar wrote: “It felt right to finally revisit a series, and, a specific direction of work I’d had to set aside since the early 1990’s.” This new body of work finally achieved the self-appointed task of melding the dissimilar styles and imagery of his own psychic vistas, with that of the concrete world; of his assured formal sensibility with intuitive exploration.
Over the next decade Kadar would revisit concepts from earlier shows. In 2017, disheartened by the political climate, he started to paint detailed scenes where animals now stood in for human traits. Kadar’s 2018 exhibit “ Desire and Dread Revisited” continued to explore animals and landscapes now amidst fears of irreversible climate ruination.
Kadar’s final series of paintings were initially inspired by the stunning Bandiagara Escarpment region located in the Dogon country of Mali, West Africa. The massive escarpment cliffs rise about 1,600 ft, are approximately 90 miles long and have immeasurable cultural significance; they are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Kevin showed me about two dozen and I can’t imagine pinning any of them to only one particular scene, they are a culmination of everything he had experienced in his 70 years. This was the most exuberant and brilliant painting series I’d ever seen him create! His colors and gestures were so full of life, joy and optimism. Kevin was very happy with this new work and eager to keep exploring new territory. Life celebration and exhibit details will be announced soon.
Thank you, Charles Froelick and everyone at Froelick Gallery.
