Walter Francis Kuhn (October 27, 1877 – July 13, 1949) was an American painter and an organizer of the famous Armory Show of 1913, which was America's first large-scale introduction to European Modernism.

Growing up near the Red Hook, Brooklyn[1] docks in a working-class family, he was exposed to a range of rough, colorful waterfront experiences in his youth and, though he loved to draw, nothing in his background suggested a future career in art.

At fifteen, though, Walter Kuhn sold his first drawings to a magazine and began to sign his name “Walt.” In 1893, deciding that he would benefit from some formal training, he enrolled in art classes at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.

[5] When the New York School of Art moved to Fort Lee, New Jersey in the summer of 1908, Kuhn joined the faculty.

An important friendship was formed at this time with artist Arthur Bowen Davies, who would also play a significant role in American art history.

In the following years, he took part in founding the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, the organization ultimately responsible for the Armory Show.

He, Davies, and artist Walter Pach made a whirlwind tour of Europe in 1912 to find the best and most audacious examples of new art to introduce to New York audiences.

Smart and sensational publicity, combined with strategic word-of-mouth, resulted in attendance figures of over 200,000 and over $44,000 in sales, far exceeding anyone's expectations for the venture.

[9] This unprecedented exhibition had demonstrated that Americans might be receptive to modern art and that there was a large potential market for it; Kuhn played a major role in a transformative cultural event.

By the end of the decade, though, Kuhn's paintings had become more traditionally representational again, though he never worked in the manner of an academic realist; his portraits and still lifes are composed of broad painterly effects, strong colors, and thick textures.

He also completed a commission for the Union Pacific Railroad, the club car "The Little Nugget" LA-701, currently under restoration at the Travel Town Museum in Los Angeles, California.

Although he destroyed many of his early paintings, his works that remain today are powerful and are a part of most major American art collections.