Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and The Modern

by Jake Milgram Wien

Among the first generation of American modernist painters, Rockwell Kent rose to fame between the world wars as a visual poet of the natural world. This impressive volume includes a wide range of works from the Pushkin and Hermitage Museums in Russia, and illustrations for such literary classics as Canterbury Tales and Moby Dick. It also offers insights into the spiritual and intellectual influencesguiding Kent, and exposes his identity as a Jazz Age humourist Hogarth Jr. whose ink drawings captivated readers of Harper's Weekly and Vanity Fair. A list of solo exhibitions and a detailed chronology complete the publication.

200 pages, Hardcover

First published June 25, 2005

Reviews

[Mike Parkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first came across Kent through an exhibition of polar/Arctic landscape art at the Mcmichael gallery in Toronto, and was inspired to pick up this book. Anyone who loves landscape art will enjoy this volume, particularly its scenes of Greenland and the U.S. eastern hardwood forest landscape. Kent had a super interesting life as well, active in politics, and with a second art career as an illustrator of fiction. A great book on a great artist who deserves to be better known.