Painter Creates
A Century’s
Worth of Art
Philip Cohn and his studio
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
Photos by
N inety-eight-year-old artist Philip Cohn has a rotund gray and
white cat that loves to walk figure-eights around his legs and
walker. The beloved companion with the French name for cat — Minette
— is more than just a friend to Cohn; she’s all-encompassing of his
values as a painter.

“There’s a Japanese saying: If you want art, look at your cat,” Cohn
said. “Every position is a work of art.”
The inspiration Cohn draws from for his paintings are likewise
infinite. Cohn’s house, shared with his niece Marlene Kalick, is filled with
more than 500 pieces of his impressionist artwork, with paintings
assembled on the walls like Tetris pieces, barely any paint from the
walls to be seen.

Some paintings are of Italian beach scenes filled with imaginary
subjects (including an elusive house cat crouched near a rock), a
dormant Mount Vesuvius lying in the background; another shows
colorful clowns dancing in the streets of Philadelphia during the
Mummers Parade of New Year’s Days past, before COVID took the
raucous event down a couple of notches.

Cohn was inspired by the French, Dutch and Italian impressionist
scene of the late 19th century and was afforded the privilege of seeing
the painting of his heroes — Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne,
Camille Pissarro — in person decades before. His own art has clear
impressionist influences: bold brush strokes and colors that create
dazzling effects of light.

It was Cohn’s enduring love of painting that attracted the attention
of Old City Jewish Art Center Director Rabbi Zalman Wircberg. The
art center’s April exhibit, “A Lifetime of Impression,” spotlighted Cohn’s
works, and a few pieces remain in the space’s permanent collection.

Cohn reminded Wircberg of something OCJAC neighbor Larry
Becker of Larry Becker Contemporary Art once said: The sign of an artist
is someone who is compelled to create something every day.

“He’s not taking a day off. He’s not sitting and contemplating. He’s
creating,” Wircberg said.

18 MAY 5, 2022
A Philip Cohn painting of a beach scene
THE GOOD LIFE
Courtesy of Michael Kalick
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