Friday 5 May 2023

Rockwell Kent - part 15

Rockwell Kent was an American artist best known for his signature, smooth style of landscape painting. Often cited as an early American Modernist, Kent's work focuses on the otherworldly beauty of nature, influenced by Transcendentalism and the mysticism of writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Kent also made numerous extended visits to international areas of isolated wilderness, including Tierra del Fuego, Alaska, and Greenland, which served as inspiration to his work. His paintings are heavily stylised, with organic forms taking on geometric qualities and contrasting colour relationships. The artist initially graduated with an undergraduate degree in architecture from Columbia University in New York, and later studied composition and design at the Art Students League in 1900 before dedicating himself to painting. Sometime in the 1910s, he purchased an Adirondack farmstead which he named Asgaard from where he continued to work prolifically. He achieved considerable success in the 20th century, garnering awards such as the 1967 reception of the International Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union, along with a monetary prize which Kent donated to the people of Vietnam. Born on June 21, 1882, in Tarrytown, NY, he died in Plattsburgh, NY on March 13, 1971.

For a more comprehensive biography see part 1, and for earlier works see parts 1 - 14 also. This is part 15 of a 16-part series on the works of Rockwell Kent:


1949 The Decameron:


1949 The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio
published by Garden City Publishing Co., New Jersey


Title Page


...many people died...

...servants of their bellies...

... a great and famous doctor...

...seeing nothing but the waves...

...herself often invited him...

...she...tore open her clothes...

...she showed the Sultan...that she was a woman...

...she came upon Masetto...

...and locked the door...

..saw him climbing out of the tomb...

...about fourteen and very simple minded...

Guiscardo...prepared a rope with knots...

...he threw himself into the water...

...she wept over him...

...the girl emerged from the hay...

...two mastiffs...snapping cruelly at her...

...very much in love...

...after long and dreary waiting...

...laid her upon the chest...

...they both entered the bath together...

...they found the two lovers...

...keeping her hands on his shoulders...

...seized him by the band...

...saw him ride by...
-----------------------------------------------------


1950 Summer Day, Asgor
oil on canvas 86 x 112 cm
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

1950 The Storm
oil on canvas 86 x 112 cm
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

c1950 Village at Night
oil on panel 30.5 x 40.6 cm

c1950 Whitehead, Monhegan
oil on panel 30.5 x 40.6 cm
Monhegan Museum of Art & History, Maine

c1950 Wreck, Monhegan
oil on panel 19.1 x 34.9 cm

1951 Merry Christmas
lithograph 33 x 22.9 cm (image)
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
© Plattsburgh State Art Museum, State University of New York, USA

1951 The Smith Act
lithograph 34.9 x 24.8 cm (image)
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
© Plattsburgh State Art Museum, State University of New York, USA

1952 Mount Assiniboine, Canadian Rockies
oil on canvas 81 x 87 cm
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

1954 Rapids on the River Oabl, Adirondack
oil on canvas 86 x 111 cm
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

1955 Blue Day, Man, Monhegan
oil on canvas 72 x 112 cm
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

1955 Lobster Catcher
oil on canvas 72 x 112 cm
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

1955 Manx Fog, Monhegan
oil on canvas 86 x 112 cm
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

1955 The Sun Over the Sea, Man, Monhegan
oil on canvas 86 x 112 cm
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

1955 Young Spruce, The Coast of Maine
oil on canvas 71 x 112 cm

c1955 Golden Fall
oil on canvas 71.1 x 86.4 cm

c1955 Maine Headland
oil on canvas 51 x 61 cm
Farnsworth Art Museum, Maine

1956 Child Under a Tree, Virginia
oil on canvas 71.1 x 86.4 cm
H.V. Allison Galleries, New York

1956 Croquet Game
oil on canvas 71.8 x 86.4 cm

1956 Garden at Oak Ridge, Virginia
oil on canvas 69.8 x 85.4 cm

1959 Adirondack Farm, Winter
oil on canvas 87 x 112 cm
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

1960 Red Evening, Sunset, the View from Ashore
oil on canvas 87 x 112 cm
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

1960 The River Sable, Winter
oil on canvas 72 x 100 cm
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

1960 The Road to Ashore
oil on canvas 86 x 112 cm
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

c1960-65 Untitled (“Asgaard,” the farm of Sally and Rockwell Kent)
oil on canvasboard 37.8 x 45.7 cm

c1960 Mountain Road
oil on canvas Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York

1961 Whiteface Mountain, Asgaard
oil on panel 50.8 x 61 cm
Private Collection

c1961-62 Ancient Elm
oil on canvas 86.4 x 111.8 cm

1965 Evening Landscape, Bales of Hay
oil on canvas 87.6 x 112.3 cm

1965 Meadows and Mountains, Asgaard
oil on canvas laid down on plywood 124.3 x 189 cm
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow