"Americans - A Man and His Wife of Norwegian Heritage" by Wilfed "William" Langdon Kihn (NY, 1898-1957), oil on canvas, signed, 1945-47, framed - 26" x 36" 
 
This portriat was painted by Kihn for Woman's Day Magazine, and it was included in it's issue featuring Americans of vairous ethnic backgrounds. The magazine captioned the painting "Americans - A man and his wife of Norwegian heritage."  Thanks to the internet and Ebay, I was able to find a seller who sold indiviudal pages of vintage magazines, including Woman's Day Magazine. And, the seller did in fact have the page featuring Kihn's painting.  That magazine page is included in the purchase of this painting.  
 
Kihn was a portrait painter and illustrator specializing in portraits of Native Americans. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, and attended the Art Students' League, where he was a pupil of Homer Boss and Winold Reiss. Motivated by a desire to document the disappearing aboriginal culture, he spent many years visiting and living with Native American tribes in the western United States and Canada. In 1920, he was admitted to the Blackfeet tribe in Montana, under the name "Zoi-och-ka-tsai-ya," meaning "Chase Enemy in Water." In 1922, the New York Times described his work as follows: "Mr. Kihn's portraits are marvels of incisive characterization. These closely studied physiognomies show no trace of the sentimental idealization from which most painters of Indian subjects find it almost impossible to escape. Each is firm, clear, and direct, recording the subtle differences of aspect difficult enough to discern in races other than our own, and seizing the essential message of the face with youthful certainty and conviction." Throughout his career, he also illustrated a number of books, including Indian Days in the Canadian Rockies by Marius Barbeau (1923) and Pocahontas and Her World by Frances Carpenter (1961). Many of his illustrations featured colorful portraits, while children's story books such as Flat Tail by Alice Gall and Fleming Crew (1935) often featured line drawings. His paintings were featured in one-man and group exhibitions in many different museums and galleries, starting in the early 1920s. His largest and best known commission was a project to research and paint North American Indians for serial publication in National Geographic. Kihn received the commission in 1935 and his association with National Geographic spanned two decades, culminating in the 1955 exhibition of his work at the National Geographic Museum, Washington, D.C, and the publication Indians of the Americas, with copius illustrations derived from Kihn's paintings and drawings. His work is in the permanent collections of, among others, the McCord Museum in Montreal, Quebec and the Davison Art Center Gallery at Wesleyan University.