An artist with an adventurous spirit, Rockwell Kent traveled widely, gravitating to such harsh and snowy locales as Alaska, Greenland, Newfoundland, and New England for his painted landscapes. Kent set up a small shack to use as a studio in remote Vermont, which he described as a “handy refuge for a frozen realist.” It was there that he captured this view of Mount Equinox in winter, one of a group of paintings that he executed of the peak at different seasons. Although grounded in realism, Kent’s landscapes are not straightforward transcriptions of the natural world; rather, they are harmonious compositions featuring simplified forms, vivid colors, sharp contrasts, and astute design.
Date
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Signed, inscribed, and dated lower right: Rockwell Kent --Vermont--1921
Dimensions
86.6 × 111.9 cm (34 1/8 × 44 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Gertrude V. Whitney
Reference Number
1923.51
Extended information about this artwork
“Mrs. Whitney’s Gift,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 17, 5 (May 1923), 50–51 ill.
The American Magazine of Art 15, 8 (August 1924), 433 ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), 112 (ill.), cat. 573.
Rockwell Kent and Carl Zigrosser, Rockwellkentiana (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1933), frontispiece (color ill.), as Vermont Winter.
Alan Burroughs, Limners and Likenesses: Three Centuries of American Painting (Harvard University Press, 1936), 210, fig. 183.
University Club of Chicago, “Seventy–Six,” University Club Newsletter 6, 12 (December 1951), 2.
Rockwell Kent, It’s Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1955), 351, as Deer Season.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), 251.
David Traxel, An American Saga: The Life and Times of Rockwell Kent (Harper and Row, 1980), 123, as Deer Season.
Avis Berman, Rebels on Eighth Street: Juliana Force and the Whitney Museum of American Art (Atheneum, 1990), 193.
Jake Milgram Wien, Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and the Modern, exh. cat. (Hudson Hills Press/Portland museum of Art, 2005), 61.
Judith A. Barter, et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), cat. 34.
Washington, DC, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Eighth Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Contemporary American Artists, Dec. 18, 1921–Jan. 22, 1922, cat. 238.
Detroit, Mich., Detroit Institute of Arts, Eighth Annual Exhibition, Apr. 11–May 31, 1922, cat. 74, ill.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Rockwell Kent: Exhibition of Paintings, c. Jan. 1924, cat. 27.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 578.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–Nov. 1, 1934, cat. 608.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Juliana Force and American Art, Sept. 24–Oct. 30, 1949, cat. 67.
Brunswick, Me., Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Rockwell Kent: The Early Years, Aug. 15–Oct. 5, 1969, cat. 38, ill. 38.
Santa Barbara, Ca., Santa Barbara Museum of Art, “An Enkindled Eye”: The Paintings of Rockwell Kent, a Retrospective Exhibition, June 28–Sept. 1, 1985, pp. 67 (ill.), 10, cat. 40; Ohio, Columbus Museum of Art, Oct. 12–Nov. 13, 1985, Portland Art Museum, Jan. 21–Mar. 2, 1986, and Syracuse, New York, Everson Museum of Art, Apr. 11–May 18, 1986.
The artist; sold to Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, in 1923; given by her to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1923.
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