Exhibition Guide
Artist in Greenland
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Art Object Info
Rockwell Kent lived a life of robust adventure fueled by his interest in Transcendentalism, a religious and philosophical movement that stressed the independence of the self-reliant individual. A reader of both Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kent was inspired by the stark beauty of the wilderness throughout his career. Favoring cold climates, he created austere modernist landscapes in New England, Minnesota, Newfoundland, Alaska, Tierra del Fuego, Ireland, and finally, Greenland, where he spent several painting campaigns between 1929 and 1935. His characteristic icy palette and sharp, flattened forms are tempered here by an addition to the painting some years after its completion. In about 1960, at the request of the then-owner, Kent added an image of himself at work in the snow, surrounded by his sled dogs.
Art Object Info
Rockwell Kent lived a life of robust adventure fueled by his interest in Transcendentalism, a religious and philosophical movement that stressed the independence of the self-reliant individual. A reader of both Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kent was inspired by the stark beauty of the wilderness throughout his career. Favoring cold climates, he created austere modernist landscapes in New England, Minnesota, Newfoundland, Alaska, Tierra del Fuego, Ireland, and finally, Greenland, where he spent several painting campaigns between 1929 and 1935. His characteristic icy palette and sharp, flattened forms are tempered here by an addition to the painting some years after its completion. In about 1960, at the request of the then-owner, Kent added an image of himself at work in the snow, surrounded by his sled dogs.