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Born in Germany, Hans Wolfgang Kahn became known for his abstractions and color field painting. He frequently painted plein air in various locations, driving around to find a setting that spoke to him while simultaneously afraid that he would get in a wreck from looking around so much.
Kahn didn't want to copy the landscape, he instead wanted to use it as a "jumping off point for the imagination" and avoid conventional beauty. As a color field painter, he sought to communicate emotion through his color choices rather than depicting them realistically. If he didn't like the colors of a scene, he would say, "I am a meteorologist, so I am free to change the weather." He advised other painters to approach nature without an agenda and have an open mind.
One of Kahn's primary focuses in his art, which was encouraged by plein air painting, was the effect of light on a landscape, seen in "Evening Meadow," where Kahn depicted the bright sun hitting the field and casting dramatic shadows from the surrounding trees. In 1968, Kahn purchased a farmhouse in West Brattleboro, Vermont where he spent every summer painting with his artist friends in the area. Although this composition is a bit of an abstraction, it is a rendering of the farm in West Brattleboro, which is still in the Kahn family.