Near Newport

Arts of the Americas

1869

John Frederick Kensett
American, 1816–1872

In this late work, John Frederick Kensett portrayed the Rhode Island coast with spare, yet meticulous forms suffused with light and quietude. A solitary female figure seated at right almost goes unnoticed amid the long, horizontal bands of earth and water. It is the expansive sky that dominates the composition, suggestive of a spiritual force in nature. Kensett, who first trained as an engraver, applied draftsman’s precision to his paintings of the American landscape. Near Newport hints at the tourist activities that would come to define the town in the late 19th century, with couples walking along the distant shore and bathing tents dotting the horizon.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: John Frederick Kensett
Title: Near Newport
Place: Newport (Place depicted)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1869
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed, lower right: "JFK (monogram) 69"
Dimensions: 29.5 × 62.4 cm (11 5/8 × 24 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Friends of American Art Collection; Goodman Fund
Reference Number: 1944.686
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/109228/manifest.json

John Paul Driscoll and John K. Howat, John Frederick Kensett, an American Master (Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum, 1985), pl. 26, ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, Master Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, 1988), p. 87, ill.
Judith A. Barter et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998).

New York, NY, National Academy of Design, Collection of Over Five Hundred Paintings and Studies by the Late John F. Kensett, Mar. 24–29, 1873, no. 178, as Near Newport.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Hudson River School and the Early American Landscape Tradition, Feb. 15–Mar. 25, 1945, Frederick A. Sweet, cat. no. 126, p. 84, ill. as Rocky Coast at Newport.
Milwaukee–Downer College, Wisconsin, A Century of Landscape Painting by American Artists, 1851–1951, Feb. 13 – Mar. 23, 1951, cat. no. 1, as Rocky Coast, Newport. *only checklist on back of symposium brochure, The Arts in Society, Milwaukee–Downer College Feb. 13, 1951.
Athens, Ohio University, Edwin Watts Chubb Literary Art Gallery, American Painting: Masterpieces Loaned by the Art Institute of Chicago, cat. no. 3, as Third Beach, Newport.
Lake Forest College, Ill., Durand Art Institute, A Century of American Painting: Masterpieces Loaned by The Art Institute of Chicago, June 10–16, 1957, cat. no. 3, as Third Beach, Newport.
Art Institute of Chicago, Two Centuries of American Art, 1750-1950, Oct. 1, 1959–Jan. 10, 1960, no cat. [downloadable checklist available].
New York, NY, The Whitney Museum of American Art, John Frederick Kensett, 1816–1872, Sept. 10–Oct. 20, 1968, cat. no. 41, ill. as Rocky Coast at Newport; Houston, Texas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Feb. 27–Apr. 13, 1969; Jacksonville, Fla., Cummer Gallery of Art, Apr. 29–June 8, 1969.
Worcester, Mass., Worcester Art Museum, John Frederick Kensett, An American Master, Mar. 26–June 9, 1985, John Paul Driscoll and John K. Howat, pl. 26, ill.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Calif., July 11–Sept. 8, 1985; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oct. 29, 1985–Jan. 19, 1986.

John F. Kensett, New York, 1869. Robert Somerville, New York, 1873; Richard Lawrence Schieffelin, New York, 1873. A. F. Mondschein, New York, by 1944; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago 1949.

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