Eugene Kingman
| Eugene Kingman | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 10, 1909 Providence, Rhode Island United States |
| Died |
February 20, 1975 (aged 65) Lubbock, Texas United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
Yale University Rhode Island School of Design Fogg Art Museum |
| Occupation | Artist, Curator, Museum Director |
| Employer |
Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska Texas Tech Museum in Lubbock, Texas |
| Known for | landscape paintings, public murals |
Eugene Kingman was an American painter, muralist and teacher.
Biography
Kingman was born in 1909 in Providence, Rhode Island. He studied extensively at the Rhode Island School of Design (with John Frazier, Frederic Sisson and Nancy Jones) during high school, and for a year after high school, Kingman studied at the Fogg Art Museum with Edward Forbes and Paul Sachs. The entirety of his formal higher education was spent at Yale University, where he obtained both a BA and an MFA, and contributed cartoons to campus humor magazine The Yale Record.[1]
Early in his career (he was in his third year at Yale), he was commissioned by Horace M. Albright to paint seven paintings of park scenes at Sequoia, Mt. Rainier, Grand Teton, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Crater Lake.
Among other projects, he received Federal Art Project commissions to paint murals in US Post Offices. In Hyattsville, Maryland his single mural was untitled, in Kemmerer, Wyoming he painted a 3 panel set with various titles in 1938, and in 1939 in East Providence, Rhode Island he completed an oil on wall 5 panel with various titles.
Kingman taught at Rhode Island School of Design for three years, soon after which he joined the OSS as a cartographer.
After World War II, Kingman became director of the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. In addition, he acted as consultant to the Smithsonian Institution, and to the U.S. Corps of Engineers for their exhibit of the Missouri River Powerhouse.
He died in 1975.
Style
From an early age, Eugene Kingman painted landscapes. He worked in a high contrast manner, putting highlights and shade next to each other with little blending. This could have either been a result of, or the reason for, using acrylic paint, which dries quite quickly. The high contrast creates quite a dramatic rendering, which is reinforced by the use of intense, saturated colors. The surface of the canvases are rough with the marks of Kingman's paint application, most likely with a palette knife. The lighting in Kingman's scenes feels quite harsh, due in part to the use of unmodified whites and yellows as highlights, and also because of the sharp juxtaposition of highlights and shadows.
References
- ↑ Kingman, Eugene (March 25, 1931). "The Old Order Changeth" (Cartoon). The Yale Record. New Haven: Yale Record.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Bureau of Reclamation.