Jacob Kainen (December 7, 1909 – March 19, 2001) was an American painter and printmaker. He is also known as an art historian, writingbooks on John Baptist Jackson (US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1962) and the etchings of Canaletto (Smithsonian Press, Washington, DC, 1967). In addition, Kainen was a collector of German Expressionist art, and he and his second wife, Ruth, donated a collection of this work to the National Gallery of Art in 1985.