Rockwell Kent Letter

A description of the item at Syracuse University

Finding aid created by: MRR
Date: 15 Nov 2007

Revision history:
15 Nov 2007	changed title per KM (MRR)

Biographical History

Rockwell Kent was born June 21, 1882 in Tarrytown Heights, New York. He studied architecture at Columbia University and painting with Robert Henri, William Merritt Chase, and Abbott H. Thayer (though he worked as a lobsterman, carpenter, contractor, and dairy farmer as well). In 1905 his first painting was shown at the National Academy of Design. In 1916 he set himself up as a corporation and sold shares to his friends to finance his passage to Alaska, where his oil paintings and drawings established his reputation.

Kent quickly became known as one of America's foremost illustrators, providing artwork for editions of Moby Dick, Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, Leaves of Grass, and Faust, among others. In addition to painting, Kent produced wood engravings and lithographs and published several books of monologues and incidental writings. He wrote and illustrated several books based on his travels to Alaska, Tierra del Fuego and Greenland. Kent served as a consulting editor for The Colophon and edited a periodical devoted to contemporary trends, Creative Art. Later in life he wrote and illustrated two autobiographies, This Is My Own and It's Me, O Lord

Kent's strong antipathy towards social injustice influenced both his art and his personal life. He was one of many artists and intellectuals who protested the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti and he served as president of the International Workers Order, a Communist-affiliated, ethnically organized fraternal order. In 1938 the U.S. Post Office asked him to paint a mural in their headquarters in Washington, DC; Kent included (in Inuit dialect and in tiny letters) an antigovernment statement in the painting, which caused some consternation. In 1953 he refused to answer the accusation that he was a member of the Communist Party. As a consequence of his outspoken leftist beliefs, his reputation in the United States declined somewhat in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1960 Kent donated several hundred paintings and drawings to the Soviet Union, which responded by making him an honorary member of their academy of Fine Arts and awarding him the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967. Kent donated the prize money to the people of North Vietnam.

Rockwell Kent died March 13, 1971. The New York Times described him as "...a thoughtful, troublesome, profoundly independent, odd and kind man who made an imperishable contribution to the art of bookmaking in the United States."

(Sources: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002; World Authors 1900-1950, 1996 © The H. W. Wilson Company)

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Rockwell Kent Letter consists of one 2-page letter dated December 11, 1949 and addressed to "Dear Ned." In the letter Kent expresses his thanks for the receipt of some record albums and promises to two of "those Spanish posters" for an auction "for the cause." He also mentions having recently read Avro Manhattan's The Vatican in World Politics (1949), and criticizes President Roosevelt's "sell-out of the Spanish people" (i.e. his refusal to lift an embargo) in exchange for the Vatican's support in his election bid and in bringing South America into the Allied fold.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions: There are no access restrictions on this material.

Use Restrictions: Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Subject Headings

Persons

Kent, Rockwell, 1882-1971.

Genres and Forms

Letters.

Occupations

Artists

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

Rockwell Kent Letter,
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Library

Acquisition Information

Purchased from George Arents Fund, 11/2007.

Table of Contents

Correspondence

Inventory