Rockwell Kent

'The Bather' — 1930s American Modernism

1931

Lynd Ward, 'Madman's Drum, Plate 41', wood engraving, 1930, edition small. Signed in pencil. A fine, black impression, on off-white tissue-thin Japan paper; the full sheet with margins (1 5/8 to 2 1/2 inches); a small paper blemish in the upper right margin, away from the image, otherwise in excellent condition. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches (140 x 95 mm); sheet size 9 5/8 x 7 1/8 inches (244 x 181 mm). From Lynd Ward’s book of illustrations without words, 'Madman’s Drum', Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, New York, 1930. Illustrated in 'Storyteller Without Words: The Wood Engravings of Lynd Ward', Harry Abrams, New York, 1974. Reproduced in 'Storyteller Without Words, the Wood Engravings of Lynd Ward', Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1974. ABOUT THE ARTIST Lynd Ward is acknowledged as one of America’s foremost wood engravers and book illustrators of the first half of the twentieth century. His innovative use of narrative printmaking as a stand-alone storytelling vehicle was uniquely successful in reaching a broad audience. The powerful psychological intensity of his work, celebrated for its dynamic design, technical precision, and compelling dramatic content, finds resonance in the literature of Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne. Like these classic American writers, Ward was concerned with the themes of man’s inner struggles and the role of the subconscious in determining his destiny. An artist of social conscience during the Great Depression and World War II, he infused his graphic images with his unique brand of social realism, deftly portraying the problems that challenged the ideals of American society. The son of a Methodist preacher, Lynd Ward, moved from Chicago to Massachusetts at an early age. He graduated from the Teachers College of Columbia University, New York, in 1926, where he studied illustration and graphic arts. He married May Yonge McNeer in 1936 and left for Europe for their honeymoon in Eastern Europe. After four months, they settled in Leipzig, where Ward studied at the National Academy of Graphic Arts and Bookmaking. Inspired by Belgian expressionist artist Frans Masereel's graphic novel ‘The Sun,’ and another graphic novel by the German artist Otto Nückel, ‘Destiny,’ he determined to create his own "wordless" novel. Upon his return to America, Ward completed his first book, ‘God's Man: A Novel in Woodcuts,’ published in 1929. ‘Gods’ Man’ was a great success for its author and publisher and was reprinted four times in 1930, including a British edition. This book and several which followed it, ‘Madman’s Drum,’ 1930, ‘Wild Pilgrimage...

A brilliant, black impression, on cream wove Japan; the full sheet with margins (2 to 2 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Edition 150. Signed in pencil. Matted to museum standards...

Rockwell Kent, 'Mountain Climber', wood engraving, 1933, edition 250, Burne Jones 93. Signed in pencil. A brilliant, black impression, on cream, wove Japan paper; the full sheet with margins (2 9/16 to 3 5/8 inches); slight skinning at the top sheet edge verso, where previously hinged; otherwise, in excellent condition. Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 7 7/8 x 5 7/8 inches (200 x 149 mm); sheet size 14 x 11 1/8 inches (356 x 283 mm). Printed by Pynson Printers, New York. Distributed by The Print Club of Cleveland, Publication No. 11, 1933. Literature: 'Rockwellkentiana,' Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1933. '101 of The World’s Greatest Books', edited by Spencer Armstrong, 1950. Impressions of this work are held in the following museum collections: Akron Art Institute, Burne Jones Collection, IL; Cincinnati Art Museum; Cleveland Museum of Art; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Davis Museum at Wellesley College; Fine Art Museums of San Francisco; H. M. de Young Museum; Hermitage Museum; Kent Collection, NY; Library of Congress; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester; Metropolitan Museum of Art; New York Public Library; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Princeton University Library; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Spector Collection, NY; SUNY, Plattsburg. ABOUT THE ARTIST Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), though best known as a painter, graphic artist, and illustrator, pursued many careers throughout his life, including architect, carpenter, explorer, writer, dairy farmer, and political activist. Born in Tarrytown, New York, Kent was interested in art from a young age. These ambitions were encouraged by his aunt Jo Holgate, an accomplished ceramicist. Jo came to live with the family after Kent’s father passed away in 1887 and took him to Europe as a teenager, undoubtedly kindling his interest in exploring the world. Kent attended the Horace Mann School in New York City, where he excelled at mechanical drawing. His family’s financial circumstances prevented him from pursuing a career in the fine arts; however, after graduating from Horace Mann in 1900, Kent decided to study architecture at Columbia University. Before matriculating at Columbia, Kent spent the first of three consecutive summers studying painting at William Merritt Chase’s art school in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island. There he found a community of mentors and fellow students who encouraged him to pursue his interest in art. At the end of Kent’s third summer at Shinnecock, Chase offered him a full scholarship to the New York School of Art, where he was a teacher. Kent began taking night classes at the art school in addition to his architecture studies but soon left Columbia to study painting full-time. In addition to Chase, Kent took classes with Robert Henri and Kenneth Hayes Miller, where his classmates included the artists George Bellows and Edward Hopper. Kent spent the summer of 1903 assisting the eccentric painter Abbott Handerson Thayer at his studio in Dublin, New Hampshire—a position he secured through the recommendation of his Aunt Jo. Thayer’s naturalist lifestyle and almost mystical appreciation for natural phenomena greatly influenced Kent; he returned to Dublin for many years to visit Thayer and his family. Thayer gave the young artist time to pursue his work, and that summer Kent painted several views of the New Hampshire landscape, including Mount Monadnock. In 1905 Kent moved from New York to Monhegan Island in Maine, home to a summer art colony, where he continued to find inspiration in nature. Kent soon found success exhibiting and selling his paintings in New York, and in 1907, he was given his first solo show at Claussen Galleries. The following year he married his first wife, Kathleen Whiting (Thayer’s niece), with whom he had five children. The couple divorced in 1924, and Kent married Frances Lee the following year. They divorced after 15 years of marriage, and the artist married Sally Johnstone. For the next several decades, Kent lived a peripatetic lifestyle, settling in several locations in Connecticut, Maine, and New York. During this time he took several extended voyages to remote, often ice-filled, corners of the globe, including Newfoundland, Alaska, Tierra del Fuego, and Greenland, to which he made three separate trips. For Kent, exploration and artistic production were twinned endeavors, and his travels to these rugged, elemental locations inspired his visual art and his writings. He developed a stark, realist landscape style in his paintings and drawings that revealed both nature’s harshness and its sublimity. Kent’s human figures, which appear sparingly in his work, often allude to the mythic themes of isolation, individualism, heroism, and the quest for self-connection. Important exhibitions of works from these travels include the Knoedler Gallery’s shows in 1919 and 1920, featuring Kent’s Alaska drawings...

Benton Spruance, 'Girl with Hands to Face', two-color lithograph, 1940, edition 30, Fine and Looney 180. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Ed. 30' in pencil. A superb impression, on cr...

Boris Lovet-Lorski, Untitled (Nude with Horse), lithograph, edition 250, 1929. Signed and numbered 10 in pencil. Number 10 of Volume 1, a series of 10 ...

Russell T. Limbach, 'Untitled (Modernist Nude)', etching and aquatint, no known edition, c. 1930. Signed in pencil. A fine impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 7/8 to 2 3/4 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 8 15/16 x 5 15/16 inches; sheet size 13 3/8 x 10 1/4 inches. Extremely rare. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Probably created when Limbach was in Paris (1928-1934), where he was exposed to modernist printmaking explorations at Stanley William Hayter’s 'Atelier 17'. ABOUT THE ARTIST Born in Massillon, Ohio, Russell Limbach...

String bound booklet (portfolio) with six hand colored woodcuts, signed in pencil by the artist, tipped in the book Provenance: Estate of the artist By descent to his daughter Kir...

'Nude with Winter Bouquet 11/30', vintage aquatint etching on paper by Doel Reed (1894-1985) with a reclining female figure posed with a flowers in a vase and drapery from 1972. Signed by the artist lower right margin, numbered 11 of an edition of 30 lower left margin. Presented in a custom frame with archival materials, outer dimensions measure 20 ½ x 26 ¼ x 1 inches. Image size is 11 ¾ x 17 ¾ inches. Illustrated in Doel Reed: The Graphic Works by Harry B. Cohen and Ann L. Rogers, page 83, plate 124. Collections: University of Wyoming; Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe; University of Oklahoma; Oklahoma State University Exhibited: 147th National Academy of Design, New York; Indiana Printmakers, 1972; 32nd Annual Print Show, Philbrook Museum, 1972; 53rd Annual Exhibition, Society of American Graphic Artists, New York, 1975 About the Artist: Early in his artistic career, Dole Reed knew he wanted to be a printmaker. Influenced by Goya’s aquatints...

Plate 2 2 plate drypoint with hand coloring, 1984 Signed and numbered in pencil (see photos) From: Barcelona Suite (6 plates) Edition: A/P 8/10 in pencil lower left Signed in pencil with the artist's initials and dated, lower right Condition: Excellent Image/combined plate size: 12 1/4 x 14 inches From a very are set. I an find not reference to the suite or the individual plates, including Stanford Library and the de Young and Legion of Honors museums in San Francisco. "Matt Phillips lived in Atlantic City, New Jersey, for a time and then moved to Philadelphia. In 1952 he earned an M.A. degree at the University of Chicago and then studied at Stanford University. After traveling extensively in Europe, Phillips accepted a teaching position at Pennsylvania State University. He returned to Europe in 1962 to teach for two years at the American College in Paris. On his return to the United States in 1964, Phillips joined the faculty of Bard College in upstate New York, where he taught until moving to California in 1987. As early as 1961, Phillips had begun making monotypes and writing about the process. His efforts to organize monotype exhibitions, as well as his own concentration on the medium, helped to reintroduce contemporary artists to a technique that had been favored by ninteenth-century artists. Phillips?s subtle and delicate prints have been inspired in part by the monotypes of Maurice Brazil Prendergast...

Marion Epstein (American, 1921-2002) Titania, 1973 Lithograph Framed: 31 1/2 x 25 x 1/2 in. Numbered, titled, signed and dated bottom For over 60 years, local artist Marion Epstein has worked through her art to bridge the personal and the political, family and career. A versatile and prolific artist, she has done sculpture, enameling, painting and photography. But it was printmaking that truly captivated her imagination. Like many artists of her generation, Epstein was powerfully influenced by the political activism of the 1960s. A member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Epstein recalls attending meetings out of town with her young son in tow. The anti-war movement influenced a number of her pieces. "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" echoes the sentiment of the popular anti-war folk song. This very tall print (6-by-2-1/2 feet) in tones of black, cream and ochre shows a tall woman (Marion) shielding a child, with spindly flowers drooping around them. "I didn't do abstractions," says Epstein. "I was always trying to say something." Another anti-war piece, "Generations of Thy Children," combines oil painting and collage on a bisected canvas. On the right half, a lone figure of a Vietnamese child stands forlornly on a reddish orange background. The left side of the canvas is crowded with images of soldiers, artillery and politicians. Epstein's print "Metamorphosis," completed following her participation in a civil rights march in Washington, tries to capture the changes and uncertainty in America during that time. In the background a white man looms with a questioning, almost fearful look on his face while the black youth in the foreground has his eyes downcast. Works such as "Dream Deferred" and "Aching To be Free" also represent the artist's personal reflections on the struggle for racial equality. Much of Epstein's art is a complex layering of imagery and texture, line and translucent color. In her haunting print, "Ovens and Shoes," one of several works in which she addresses the Holocaust, she makes interesting use of photographic images from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Over a saturated black print of the death camp ovens, she has superimposed a pale ochre print of the pile of discarded shoes. Layered on top of these and centered between the arches of the ovens is the violet image of a Rodin sculpture of a man. (Bio sourced from Cleveland Jewish News, by Susan Kahn)

Three women strolling on a beach. This impression is one of the rare impressions printed monochromatically. Hirsch natural inclination was to print in lack and white but reprinted ...

A lookout starkly rendered in the art deco style straddles the mast of a ship as he surveys the landscape. Rockwell Kent's wood engraving issued in 1930 in an edition of 120. it is ...