Otto Kahn: Art, Money, & Modern Time (review)

This biography of the banker and legendary patron of the arts, Otto Kahn, has appeared at a time when investment banking is once again under public scrutiny and congressional investigation in the wake of the most recent stock market debacle. Moreover, this first full study of Kahn's life is much more than a treatment of the influential career of this German-Jewish-American businessman and a companion discussion of one of the most influential forces on the New York City and national arts scenes. Theresa Collins makes a significant contribution to intellectual and social history as she explores themes of social mobility, American Jewishness, transatlantic culture, social elitism, and modernity through the life of this extraordinary man.

Kahn was born in 1867 into an affluent family in Mannheim, Germany, where neither of his parents was a practicing Jew. His father, Bernhard, had fled Germany following the revolutions of 1848 to become an American citizen but returned to Mannheim and the family business, which had evolved from manufacturing to banking. These cosmopolitan forces, including the young Otto's residence and citizenship in Britain as a merchant banker before his emigration to the United States, play a distinctive role in Collins' analysis. She also plays mightily on the German concept of Bildung (defined as how an individual is "formed" or "cultivated" within a social collectivity) in her interpretation. Kahn was unique in his depth of support for the arts, particularly music and theater. Otto had already developed a successful banking career, as well as a reputation in the arts community in London, when he came to New York on assignment in 1893. Ambitious, Kahn advanced within the German Jewish banking community when he married the daughter of Abraham Wolff of Kuhn, Loeb & Company in 1896 and became a partner in the firm. A major competitor of the leading "Yankee" house in New York (Morgan), Kuhn, Loeb had made its reputation in railroad financing. Otto would soon strike up a business and personal relationship with the railroad magnate E.H.Harriman, a major client of Kuhn, Loeb, which would help further his career and influence his business persona.

The centerpiece of Kahn's role in the world of arts became his membership on the board of the new Metropolitan Opera in 1903. Swallowing his pride when questions of the board's being "too Jewish" came up, Kahn soon became its most influential member, chair, and chief financial patron. Otto Kahn became a force for change in his support of the more avant-garde, both in the opera and as a patron of other notable institutions including the Ballet Russes and the Provincetown Players. Kahn also became the generous patron of individual artists, including the designer Norman Bel Geddes, the singer Paul Robeson, and the poet Hart Crane, among others. Kahn's support of Crane made possible the writing of Crane's epic masterpiece, The Bridge, which he dedicated to Kahn and whose title provides a metaphor for Kahn's life. He was a bridge between Europe and America, traditional and modern, business and the arts, being a Jew and being an American. Space limitations prevent a detailed discussion of the myriad ways Kahn's influence was felt in the theater, the music world, and Hollywood, particularly in the 1920s when Otto was at the peak of his game, but Collins has ensured that no complete picture of American high culture in the first three decades of the twentieth century can be presented without attention to Otto Kahn.

Success in the public arts arena, Kahn's pursuit of Bildung, was accomplished concurrently with his becoming one of the more visible and successful investment bankers of his generation. Consistent with the philosophy of Kuhn, Loeb, Otto's conservative strategies served the firm well at the time of the 1929 Crash. During World WarI Kahn had played a central role...