John Frederick Kensett (1816 - 1872) American
Watercolor on Paper
Measure 13"in H x 23"in W and 20 1/2"in H x 31"in W with frame
Known for: Landscape and coastal scene painting, engravings
Biography: One of the leading Hudson River School artists, John F. Kensett was originally from Cheshire, Connecticut. He began his artistic career as a bank note engraver in the roaring financial market of the 1830's. When the "Wild Cat Era" (named after one of the colorful images engraved on the paper currency of a short-lived bank) ended with the Panic of 1837, Kensett went abroad to study painting in England and France. For almost ten years he studied the works of the Old Masters along with Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole's best friend. Durand's influence was considerable as Kensett's oils are noted for their sense of calm, as opposed to the almost violently dramatic feel of Cole's signature works. By the time Kensett returned to the United Sates in 1848, he emerged as a full-blown artist, and quickly became one of the pillars of the New York art world. His style would evolve from the pastoral Hudson River School style into what is known as Luminism, focused on light and atmosphere, instead of painting specific topographical locations. Kensett more than any of the other landscape painters of that era pursued Luminism, which was a tangent towards abstraction. When he died in 1872, after rescuing a neighbors wife from drowning in Long Island Sound, his studio was discovered to contain a series of not quite finished paintings, since titled Last Summer's Work. These works stunned the New York art world and were regarded as absolute works of genius. In fact, they were so well regarded that the infant Metropolitan Museum of Art, an institution Kensett and his fellow Union League Club members founded, made a group of 39 landscapes of Lake George, and Long Island Sound the nucleus of its collection.
Condition
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