Displaying items by tag: rockwell kent

George Bellows, Robert Henri, Marsden Hartley, Rockwell Kent, John Marin, Louise Nevelson and N.C., Andrew and Jamie Wyeth. All lived or worked in Maine.

And all are represented in the 45 paintings, sculptures and assemblages in "American Treasures from the Farnsworth Art Museum" at The Society of the Four Arts. The Farnsworth, situated in Rockland, Maine, focuses on the state’s role in American art — the extent to which might surprise some viewers.

The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth received an anonymous $10 million donation. The gift, which will be put towards building the centerpiece of the two-year renovation and expansion project:  a new Museum Learning Center.

The renovation project, helmed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects—designers of the American Folk Art Museum building and the new Barnes Foundation—is part of Dartmouth’s aim of beefing up its campus arts district. The expansion will increase the museum’s current 39,000-square-foot space by 15,000 square feet, giving it more room to show off the museum’s collection, which touts some 65,000 objects including paintings by Perugino, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Rockwell Kent, along with a collection of Assyrian stone reliefs. The expansion will also add three classrooms for the use of digital technology.

It looks like an art exhibit, when in fact it’s a family tree.

“The Richman Gifts: American Impressionism and Realism,” now at the Norton Museum of Art, is a window into how generations of early 20th century American painters influenced one another.

This collection of 11 paintings given to the museum — a “promised gift” from trustees Priscilla and John Richman upon their passing — allows you to follow how two schools of early American artists developed on different vines.

Between 2010 and 2013, 100 American masterworks from the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. traveled to museums in Italy, Spain, Japan, Tennessee, Texas, and Florida. The exhibition earned rave reviews and was seen by more than 30,000 people. The Phillips Collection is currently hosting an expanded version of this hit show, titled “Made in the USA: American Masters from the Phillips Collection, 1850-1970.”

The exhibition is the most comprehensive presentation of the museum’s American art collection undertaken in nearly 40 years. “Made in the USA” presents over 200 works from the museum’s holdings including seascapes, city scenes, abstract canvases, and portraits. The exhibition is organized chronologically, beginning with American art from the late 19th century and ending with works from the postwar years. “Made in the USA” includes paintings, drawings, and etchings by Thomas Eakins, Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, John Marin, Arthur Dove, and Willem de Kooning.

The Phillips Collection, which was founded in 1921 by Duncan Phillips, was the first museum in the United States dedicated to American art. Over the course of 50 years, Phillips built a collection of nearly 2,000 pieces of modern art of which 1,400 were American.

“Made in the USA” will be on view at the Phillips Collection through August 31.

Collectors Charles and Irene Hamm have donated $1 million and 165 works from their collection of coastal art to the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, CT. The collection includes oil paintings by Robert Henri, Thomas Hart Benton and Rockwell Kent as well as watercolors by Fairfield Porter and William Trost Richards. The generous monetary gift will help fund the construction of an 18,000-square-foot New Wing, which will include a Charles and Irene Hamm Gallery. The bequest will also increase the museum’s endowments for operations and acquisitions.

John R. Rathgeber, Chairman of the museum’s Board of Trustees, said, “With the donation of Charles and Irene Hamm, the New Britain Museum will have one of the most outstanding collections of coastal art in the country.” The museum plans to hold thematic exhibitions drawn from the Hamm’s holdings. A number of the significant works will be loaned to other institutions throughout the country and, in the future, the New Britain Museum plans to organize a traveling exhibition of highlights from the Hamm Collection.

Charles Hamm, a successful advertising and financial mogul, and his wife Irene, an educator, have been collecting for several decades. Charles’ affinity for maritime scenes was spurred by his love of sailing.

Construction is expected to begin on the New Britain Museum’s New Wing in 2014.

On June 15, 2013 the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA will present the exhibition Jamie Wyeth, Rockwell Kent and Monhegan. Located off of the coast of Maine, Monhegan has been a popular destination for artists looking to capture its rugged wilderness, sweeping ocean views, and enduring inhabitants.

The Brandywine River Museum’s exhibition will focus on the works of Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946), a contemporary realist painter who favors figurative compositions over landscapes, and Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), a realist painter, printmaker, and illustrator who often drew inspiration from the natural world and man’s relationship with its almighty forces. While Wyeth and Kent never met, their works are inextricably linked thanks to Monhegan’s evocative nature. Together, their works tell the story of the island and its people, which spans a century.

Highlights from the exhibition include Wyeth’s most recent paintings of Monhegan as well as a number of Kent’s coastal landscapes from Wyeth’s personal collection. Jamie Wyeth, Rockwell Kent and Monhegan, which was organized by Maine’s Farnsworth Museum, will be on view through November 17, 2013.

“Egypt,” an idyllic hill farm situated in an isolated hollow high on the slopes of Red Mountain in Arlington, Vermont, served as home base for the artist Rockwell Kent (1882–1971) and his growing family from the summer of 1919 to the summer of 1925. Arriving in Vermont on the heels of a sojourn to Alaska and buoyed by the critical and financial success of the work he had commenced there, including his travel memoir, Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, Kent quickly rose to become one of the most renowned artistic figures in America. Despite the fact that this period proved to be pivotal in the arc of Kent’s career, the artist’s seminal years in Arlington have been largely overlooked.

While sales totaled $3,486,127 million at Sotheby’s American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture auction on September 28^th in New York, 35% of lots went unsold. Sotheby’s did slightly better than Christie’s in the American Art arena, but both sales are a testament to the lackluster performance of mid-season auctions.

“Sotheby’s did put a few more important paintings in the sale,” said Debra Force of Debra Force Fine Art, Inc. “The question is whether the clientele is there to buy it.” It appears that the clientele interested in purchasing Rockwells were at least in attendance. Is He Coming? (1919), a quintessential Norman Rockwell painting of a young boy and his dog peering up the chimney on what appears to be Christmas Eve, brought in $602,500. The final price was $300,000 more than than the paintings high estimate ($200,000–$300,000).

Sotheby’s sale featured more than 200 paintings, drawings, and sculptures and included property from two noteworthy private collections belonging to Margie and Robert E. Petersen and Susan Kahn Rosenkranz and Richard Rosenkranz. Highlights included works by Rockwell Kent, Marsden Harley, Grandma Moses, and Ben Shahn with Kent and Moses taking two of the top five lots. Moses’ On the Banks of the Hudson reached the third highest price of the sale at $92,500 but still brought in considerably less than its high estimate of $120,000. Rockwell Kent’s Adirondack Farm, Summer sold for $86,5000 (estimate: $25,000–$35,000), the fourth highest sale of the auction.

While the highlights of the auction could have made more money in a more important sale, the quality is there. "Maybe more important collectors need to get used to looking at these mid-season sales," says Force. 

Concurrent Rockwell Kent (1882–1971) exhibitions will open at St. Lawrence’s University’s Richard F. Brush Art Gallery and Owen D. Young Library on October 15. An American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer, Kent spent most of his adult life living and working at Asgaard Farm in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. A prominent artist, author, activist, and adventurer, Kent was one of the most noted figures of his time.

The two St. Lawrence exhibitions will present key areas of Kent’s multi-faceted career as a painter and printmaker. A student of William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri, Kent’s early paintings exhibit an impressionistic style and simple three-plane composition that anticipated his later, more modern inclinations to simplify his paintings’ compositions. A select group of books highlight Kent’s preeminence as one of the finest illustrators of his time. The prints and drawings on view show Kent’s mastery of chiaroscuro and his knack for reworking original imagery into everything from commercial greeting cards and advertisements to seals and pottery.

Rockwell Kent: The Once Most Popular Artist includes nearly 75 works spanning Kent’s entire artistic career as well as his varied endeavors into different mediums. Kent specialist, Scott R. Ferris, who will also give a lecture at the exhibitions opening on October 15, curated the show. The Once Most Popular Artist will be on view through December 14, 2012.