Attributed Rockwell Kent (1882 - 1971) American
Gouache on Paper
Measure 14"in H x 10"in W and 19 1/4"in H x 15 1/4"in W with frame
Known for: Genre, illustrations, graphics, mural painting
Biography: One of America's noted painters, Rockwell Kent chose a life of art and culture. Also an illustrator, designer, and printmaker, he was equally well known for his intellectual writings, far-reaching travel, support of artists' issues, and political activism. To Kent, painting was a highly philosophical exercise for individual expression. His clear, simplified landscapes of the mid-twentieth century stand as a figural counterpoint to abstractionism. Born in Tarrytown, New York, Kent, at the age of thirteen, accompanied his aunt, a watercolorist and ceramic painter, on a tour of Europe, where he first studied the Old Masters. This experience, coupled with his teenaged studies with William Merritt Chase in Shinnecock Hills, inspired the young man to become an artist. After three years on scholarship at the Columbia University School of Architecture, he withdrew to study at the New York School of Art, Chase's winter center. There, he became a friend and colleague to his teacher Robert Henri, as well as to fellow students of the Ashcan school, George Bellows and Edward Hopper. As a mature artist, Kent loved the outdoors and sought to interpret nature through landscape painting. He traveled extensively to paint, spending time in Monhegan Island, Maine, Europe, and visiting remote locales in Alaska, Newfoundland, Greenland, and Tierra del Fuego.