Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent (June 21, 1882–March 13, 1971) was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer.
Biography
Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York, the same year as fellow American artists George Bellows and Edward Hopper. His family heritage was German; Kent spoke the language from his childhood and throughout his life would form many close friendships with those of a German cultural background.[1] Kent lived much of his early life in and around New York City, and moved in his mid-40s to an Adirondack farmstead that he called Asgaard where he lived and painted until his death. Kent studied with the influential painters and theorists of his day. He studied painting with William Merritt Chase every summer between 1870 and 1900.[1] In 1902, he entered Robert Henri's class at the New York School of Art, which Chase had founded.[1] The following year, he was apprenticed to Abbott Thayer.[1] Other artists Kent studied with include Arthur Wesley Dow and Kenneth Hayes Miller. An undergraduate background in architecture at Columbia University prepared Kent for occasional work in the 1900s and 1910s as a draftsman and carpenter.
Kent's early paintings of Mount Monadnock and New Hampshire were first shown at the Society of American Artists in New York in 1904, when Dublin Pond was purchased by Smith College. In 1905 Kent ventured to Monhegan Island, Maine, where he based himself for the next five years. His first series of paintings of Monhegan were shown in 1907 at Clausen Galleries in New York to wide critical acclaim, and they form the foundation of his lasting reputation as an early American modernist. Among those lauding Kent was critic James Huneker of the Sun (who would soon deem the paintings of The Eight to be "decidedly reactionary"). Huneker praised Kent's brushwork as athletic and his colorful dissonances as daring. In 1910, Kent helped organize the Exhibition of Independent Artists.[1]
A transcendentalist and mystic in the tradition of Thoreau and Emerson, whose works he read, Kent found inspiration in the austerity and stark beauty of wilderness. After Monhegan, he lived for extended periods of time in Newfoundland (1914–15), Alaska (1918–19), Tierra del Fuego (1922–23), Ireland (1926), and Greenland (1929; 1931–32; 1934–35).
In 1918-19 Kent and his nine year-old son ventured to the American frontier of Alaska. Wilderness (1920), the first of Kent's several adventure memoirs, is an edited and illustrated compilation of his letters home. Upon the artist's return to New York in 1919, publishing scion George Palmer Putnam and others, including Juliana Force—assistant to Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney—implemented their avant-garde notion of incorporating the artist as "Rockwell Kent, Inc." to support him in his new Vermont homestead while he completed his paintings from Alaska for exhibition in 1920 at Knoedler Galleries in New York. Kent's small oil on wood panel sketches from Alaska—uniformly horizontal studies of light and color—were exhibited at Knoedler's as "Impressions." Their artistic lineage to the small and spare oil sketches of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), which are often entitled "Arrangements," underscores Kent's admiration of Whistler as a "genius."
Approached in 1926 by publisher R. R. Donnelley to produce an illustrated edition of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.'s Two Years Before the Mast, Kent suggested Moby-Dick instead. Published in 1930 by the Lakeside Press of Chicago, the three-volume limited edition filled with Kent's haunting black-and-white pen/brush and ink drawings sold out immediately; Random House produced a trade edition which was also immensely popular. A previously obscure book, Moby Dick had been rediscovered by critics in the early 1920s. The success of the Rockwell Kent illustrated edition was a factor in its becoming recognized as the classic it is today.
Less well known are Kent's talents as a jazz age humorist. As the gifted pen-and-ink draftsman "Hogarth, Jr.", Kent created a wealth of whimsical and irreverent drawings published by Vanity Fair, New York Tribune, Harper's Weekly, and the original Life. He brought his Hogarth, Jr. style to a series of richly colored reverse paintings on glass which he completed in 1918 and exhibited at Wanamaker's Department Store. (Two of these glass paintings are in the collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, part of the bequest of modernist collector Ferdinand Howald.) Further decorative work ensued intermittently: in 1939, Vernon Kilns reproduced three series of designs drawn by Kent (Moby Dick, Salamina, Our America) on its sets of contemporary china dinnerware. Kent also illustrated an entire issue of the upmarket pulp magazine Adventure. [2]
Raymond Moore, founder and impresario of the Cape Playhouse and Cinema in Dennis MA, contracted with Rockwell Kent for the design of murals for the cinema, but the work of transferring and painting the designs on the 6,400-square-foot (590 m2) span was done by Kent's collaborator Jo Mielziner (1901–1976) and a crew of stage set painters from New York City. Ostensibly staying away from the state of Massachusetts to protest the Sacco and Vanzetti executions of 1927, Kent did in fact venture to Dennis in June 1930 to spend three days on the scaffolding, making suggestions and corrections. The signatures of both Kent and Mielziner appear on opposite walls of the cinema.
As World War II approached, Kent shifted his priorities, becoming increasingly active in progressive politics. In 1938 the U.S. Post Office asked him to paint a mural in their headquarters in Washington, DC; Kent included (in Inuit dialect and in tiny letters) a polemical statement in the painting, which caused some consternation.[3] In 1939, he joined the Harlem Lodge of the International Workers Order (IWO), a Communist fraternal organization. A lithograph by Kent became the organization's logo in 1940, and, from 1944 to 1953, he served as the organization's President.
Increasingly supportive of Soviet-American friendship and a world devoid of nuclear weapons, Kent and his identity as an American painter receded in the postwar years; he became, along with hundreds of other prominent intellectuals and creative artists, a target of those in league with Joseph McCarthy. The rise of abstract expressionism cast a further shadow over Kent and others of his generation. In 1960 Kent donated several hundred of his paintings and drawings to the Soviet peoples and became an honorary member of the Soviet Academy of Fine Arts; he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967. (Although many believe that Kent donated the prize money to the people of North Vietnam, an interview with Kent's wife Sally that appears in a 2006 documentary about his life clarifies that Kent specified that the money be given to the women and children of Vietnam—both North and South.)
Legacy
When Kent died, The New York Times described him as "... a thoughtful, troublesome, profoundly independent, odd and kind man who made an imperishable contribution to the art of bookmaking in the United States." This cursory summing-up of an American life has been superseded by richer, more accurate accounts of the scope of the artist's influential life as a painter and writer. Reappraisals of the artist's life and work have been mounted, most recently by the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art in the summer of 2005. Among the many notes of increased recognition is the appearance of one of Kent's pen-and-ink drawings from Moby Dick on a U.S. postage stamp, part of the 2001 commemorative panel celebrating American illustrators, including Maxfield Parrish, Frederic Remington, and Norman Rockwell.
The Archives of American Art is the repository for Kent's voluminous correspondence.[4] Recently, prominent American and Canadian writers have found much gold to mine in Kent's improbable life of adventure and accomplishment. The year he spent in Newfoundland, for example, is fictionally (and very loosely) recalled by Canadian writer Michael Winter in The Big Why, his 2004 Winterset Award-winning novel. And certain qualities of the protagonist of Russell Banks's 2008 novel The Reserve are inspired by aspects of Kent's complex personality.
Works
Written and illustrated by Rockwell Kent
Kent was a prolific writer whose adventure memoirs and autobiographies include:
- Wilderness: A Journey of Quiet Adventure in Alaska — Memoir of the fall and winter of 1918/19 painting and exploring with his eldest son on Fox Island in Resurrection Bay, Alaska (1920)
- Voyaging Southwards from the Strait of Magellan — Memoir of 1922-23 travels in and around Tierra del Fuego (1924)
- N by E — Memoir of the summer 1929 voyage to (and shipwreck on the rocks of) Greenland (1930)
- Rockwellkentiana - Few words and many pictures by Rockwell Kent and Carl Zigrosser, A bibliography and list of prints, Harcourt,Brace & Co. (1933)
- Salamina — Memoir of his first Arctic winter (1931–32) painting and exploring while based in the tiny settlement of Illorsuit, Greenland (1935)
- This is My Own - autobiography, focusing on the years 1928-1939 in Au Sable Forks, Adirondacks (1940)
- It's Me, O Lord - full-scale autobiography (1955)
- "of Men and Mountains" — Account of the European travels of the author and his wife, Sally, following their release from continental imprisonment; Ausable Forks: Asgaard Press, 1959, printed by the press of A. Colish, Mount, Vernon, NY.
- "After Long Years" — Story in which the author, for a change, is not the hero; Ausable Forks: Asgaard Press, 1968, printed by the press of A. Colish, Mount Vernon, edn. of 250 copies, signed by the author.
Illustrated by Rockwell Kent
- Candide - Voltaire (1928) PEN AND INK DRAWINGS
- Moby Dick — Herman Melville (1930) PEN, BRUSH, AND INK DRAWINGS
- Beowulf[1] LITHOGRAPHS
- "Gabriel, A Poem in One Song" by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Max Eastman, NY: Covici-Friede, 1929, edn. of 750, numbered copies
- City Child — poetry by Selma Robinson PEN AND INK DRAWINGS
- The Mountains Wait — dust jacket only
- Seed — novel by Charles Norris — dust jacket, binding
- Zest — novel by Charles Norris — dust jacket, binding
- Candy — novel PEN AND INK DRAWINGS
- Leaves of Grass — poetry by Walt Whitman (1936) PEN AND INK DRAWINGS
- Erewhon — novel by Samuel Butler
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey — novel by Thornton Wilder
- Faust — by Goethe PEN AND INK DRAWINGS
- Paul Bunyan — novel by Esther Shephard PEN AND INK DRAWINGS
- A Treasury of Sea Stories — anthology edited by Gordon C. Aymar PEN AND INK DRAWINGS
- Gisli's Saga — Mediaeval Icelandic saga
- Autumn Leaves — social commentary by P W Litchfield
- Canterbury Tales PEN AND INK DRAWINGS
- The Decameron — novel by Giovanni Boccaccio PEN AND INK DRAWINGS
- The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Murals by or designed by Rockwell Kent
- The Cape Cinema Murals, Dennis, MA (1930), designed by Rockwell Kent, executed by Jo Mielziner (1901–1976) and a crew of stage set painters from New York City, finished by Kent
- United States Post Office Department Headquarters, Washington DC (1938)
References
- ^ a b c d e Roberts, Norma J., ed. (1988), The American Collections, Columbus Museum of Art, p. 66, ISBN 0-8109-1811-0 .
- ^ "if it were distinguished for nothing else, "Adventure" would stand apart from rival "pulps".... because it was once entirely illustrated by Rockwell Kent.." No. 1 Pulp - Time Time Magazine, Oct. 21, 1935. Retrieved 2nd August 2011.
- ^ Current Biography 1942, pp447-49; The mural was of a mailman delivering letters to Puerto Ricans, and on one of the letters (from Alaska) was the message . For the record, the statement was "Puerto-Ricomiunun ilapticnum! Ke ha chimmeulakut engayscaacut. Amna ketchimmi attunim chiuli waptictun itticleoraatigut!", which translated to "To the people of Puerto Rico, our friends! Go ahead. Let us change chiefs. That alone can make us free!" Though the press coverage generated consternation as well as amusement, the mural could not be altered until after Kent was issued a government check for his $3,000 fee, after which that part of the mural was painted over.
- ^ http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/findingaids/kentrock.htm
Sources
- "The Kent Collector", Rockwell Kent Gallery, Plattsburgh State Art Museum, 1974-present (as of 2011); http://clubs.plattsburgh.edu/museum/rkent2.htm
- www.scottrferris.com
- Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002.
- World Authors 1900–1950. The H. W. Wilson Company, 1996.
Further reading
- Rightmire, Robert, A Descriptive List of the Greeting Card Art of Rockwell Kent, The Kent Collector, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, Spring 2007 through current issue, a 15 part series.
- Wien, Jake Milgram, Rockwell Kent: Visionary Works from Greenland. Lighthouse Center for the Arts, Tequesta, Florida, March 3 - April 30, 2008 (color brochure with essay).
- Rightmire, Robert "Rockwell Kent: The 'Best' Printmaker?", The Kent Collector, Vol. XXII, No. 1, Summer, 1995, pp.12-13
- Ferris, Scott R., "The Evolving Legacy of Rockwell Kent," FineArtConnoisseur, January–February 2008.
- Rightmire, Robert, " A Newly Discovered Rockwell Kent Porfolio" (The PON portfolio), The Kent Collector, Vol. XXX, No. 2, Summer, 2006, pp. 15–17
- Wien, Jake Milgram, "The Archetypal Landscapes of Rockwell Kent." Antiques & Fine Art, Late Summer 2005.
- Rightmire, Robert "Every American An Art Patron," The Kent Collector, Vol. XXIX, No. 3, Fall/Winter, 2003, pp. 13-18.
- Ferris, Scott R., "In Review: Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and the Modern." Review of the exhibition and catalog, "Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and the Modern." 2005.
- Wien, Jake Milgram, Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and the Modern. Hudson Hills Press, 2005.
- Wien, Jake Milgram, "Rockwell Kent's Reverse Paintings on Glass," The Magazine Antiques (cover story), July 2005.
- Wien, Jake Milgram, "Rockwell Kent's Canterbury Pilgrims" in Chaucer Illustrated: Five Hundred Years of The Canterbury Tales in Pictures, Oak Knoll Press and British Library, 2003.
- Ferris, Scott R., "In Review: The Prints of Rockwell Kent: A Catalogue Raisonné." Review of the 2002 revised edition of "The Prints of Rockwell Kent: A Catalogue Raisonne," by Robert Rightmire.
- Roberts, Don. Rockwell Kent: The Art of the Bookplate. San Francisco: Fair Oaks Press, 2003
- Ferris, Scott R., "In the Presence of Light," included as foreword to new edition of Salamina, Wesleyan University Press, 2003.
- Rightmire, Robert, Dan Burne Jones, "The Prints of Rockwell Kent," revised edition, Alan Wolfsy Fine Arts, 2002
- Wien, Jake Milgram, "Rockwell Kent and Hollywood," Archives of American Art Journal, 2002, Volume 42, Numbers 3-4.
- Ferris, Scott R., "The Artistic Heritage of Rockwell Kent," "American Art Review," October 2002.
- Rightmire, Robert, "Rockwell Kent's Author's Edition," The Kent Collector, Vol. XXVIII, No. 2, Summer 2002, pp. 14–15
- Wien, Jake Milgram, "Rockwell Kent's First Print," Print Quarterly (London), Vol. 18 No. 3, September 2001.
- Rightmire, Robert, "Going, Going, Gone, Rockwell Kent Soars at Auction," Portland (magazine), Vol. 15, No. 6, Sept. 2000, pp. 11–13
- Ferris, Scott R., "The Stormy Petrel of American Art," "Smithsonian," August 2000.
- Rightmire, Robert, "Rockwell Kent and the Modern Library," The Kent Collector, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, Summer, 2000, pp. 15–17.
- Rightmire, Robert, "The Drawings of Rockwell Kent, the Reproductions Reconsidered," The Kent Collector, Vol. XXIV, No.1, Spring, 2000, pp. 10-12
- Ferris, Scott R. and Caroline M. Welsh, "The View from Asgaard: Rockwell Kent's Adirondack Legacy," Adirondack Museum, 1999.
- Ferris, Scott R. and Ellen Pearce, "Rockwell Kent's Forgotten Landscapes," Down East Books, 1998.
- Rightmire, Robert, "Hogarth, Jr. Taken Seriously," The Kent Collector, Vol.XXIV, No.3, Summer 1998, p. 6
- Rightmire, Robert, "The Yearbook Art of Rockwell Kent," The Kent Collector, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, Fall, 1997, pp. 10-13.
- Wien, Jake Milgram, "His Mind on Fire: Rockwell Kent's Amorous Letters to Hildegarde Hirsch and Ernesta Drinker Bullitt, 1916-1925," Columbia Library Columns, Vol. 46, No. 2, Autumn 1997.
- Rightmire, Robert, "I Hated War" (The Seven Ages of Man), The Kent Collector, Vol. XXII, No.3, Spring, 1996, pp. 3–4.
- Rightmire, Robert, "Godspeed, the Birth of the Kent Collector," The Kent Collector, Vol. XXV, No.3, Fall/Winter, 1999, pp.6-7.
- West, Richard V., "An Enkindled Eye": The Paintings of Rockwell Kent, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1985.
- Traxel, David, An American Saga: The Life and Times of Rockwell Kent. New York: Harper & Row, 1980.
- Johnson, Fridolf. Rockwell Kent: An Anthology of His Works. New York: Alfred K. Knopf, 1982.
- Johnson, Fridolf. The Illustrations of Rockwell Kent: 231 examples from Books, Magazines, and Advertising Art. New York: Dover Publications, 1976.
- Jones, Dan Burne. The Prints of Rockwell Kent: A Catalogue Raisonné. University of Chicago Press, 1975.
- Priess, David. "Rockwell Kent", American Artist 36, no. 364 (November 1972).
- American Book Collector Special Rockwell Kent Number, Vol. XIV, No. 10, Summer 1964.
- Arens, Egmont. "Rockwell Kent-Illustrator". The Book Collector's Packet. 1.9 (1932).
External links
Persondata |
Name |
Kent, Rockwell |
Alternative names |
|
Short description |
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Date of birth |
June 21, 1882 |
Place of birth |
Tarrytown, New York |
Date of death |
March 13, 1971 |
Place of death |
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