Rockwell Kent

The author relates the events of his 1929 sea voyage from Nova Scotia to the shores of Greenland, the sinking of the ship and rescue of its passengers, and life among native Greenlanders

N by E

Lee Simonson

Creative Art

Greenland Book

The artist and adventurer chronicles his seven-month excursion to a remote cabin on Alaska’s Fox Island with his nine-year-old son. In August 1918 Rockwell Kent and his nine-year-old son settled into a primitive cabin on an island near Seward, Alaska. Kent, who during the next three decades became America’s premier graphic artist, printmaker, and illustrator, was seeking time, peace, and solitude to work on his art and strengthen ties with his son. This reissue of the journal chronicling their seven-month odyssey describes what Kent called “an adventure of the spirit.” He soon discovers how deeply he is “stirred by simple happenings in a quiet world” as man and boy face both the mundane and the magnificent: satisfaction in simple chores like woodchopping or baking; the appalling gloom of long and lonely winter nights; hours of silence while each works at his drawings; crystalline moonlight glancing off a frozen lake; killer whales cavorting in their bay. Richly illustrated by Kent’s drawings, the journal vividly re-creates that sense of great height and space—both external and internal—at the same time that it celebrates a wilderness now nearly lost to us. Including Extensive Hitherto Unpublished Passages from the Original Journal. “Twenty-nine years after his death, [Rockwell] Kent has returned with a vengeance. Not since the height of his pre-McCarthyism popularity has so much of his work been available to the public.” —Scott Ferris, Smithsonian “Conservationists and ecologists should rejoice at the reappearance of this splendid diary telling of the winter of 1918-1919, during which the late Rockwell Kent and his nine-year-old son exulted in the beauties of Alaska’s remote Fox Island. Kent’s strong woodcuts and sketches perfectly complement an unaffected text that tells in an authentic and most effective way of unspoiled nature in all its glory. . . . This book has considerable merit as an account of rugged life in Alaska, as a paean to the glories of nature, and as a record of Kent’s graphic work.” —Library Journal

A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska

Wilderness

First published in 1941, A Northern Christmas is Rockwell Kent's uplifting account of the 1918 Christmas he spent with his 9-year old son in a one-room, moss-caulked log cabin on a remote Alaskan Island. Published here in its original format, with Kent's striking illustrations, this charming keepsake edition is sure to delight a new generation of readers.

A Northern Christmas

The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent

It's Me O Lord

The Autobiography Of Rockwell Kent

Its Me O Lord

When artist, illustrator, writer, and adventurer Rockwell Kent first published N by E in a limited edition in 1930, his account of a voyage on a 33-foot cutter from New York Harbor to the rugged shores of Greenland quickly became a collectors' item. Little wonder, for readers are immediately drawn to Kent's vivid descriptions of the experience; we share "the feeling of wind and wet and cold, of lifting seas and steep descents, of rolling over as the wind gusts hit," and the sound "of wind in the shrouds, of hard spray flung on a drum-tight canvas, of rushing water at the scuppers, of the gale shearing a tormented sea." When the ship sinks in a storm-swept fjord within 50 miles of its destination, the story turns to the stranding and subsequent rescue of the three-man crew, salvage of the vessel, and life among native Greenlanders. Magnificently illustrated by Kent's wood-block prints and narrated in his poetic and highly entertaining style, this tale of the perils of killer nor'easters, treacherous icebergs, and impenetrable fog -- and the joys of sperm whales breaching or dawn unmasking a longed-for landfall -- is a rare treat for old salts and landlubbers alike.

This retrospective brings together the finest work of the most important American book illustrator of the 1920s and 30s, gathering black-and-white pieces from not only important novels, but magazines and advertisements.

231 Examples from Books, Magazines and Advertising Art

The Illustrations of Rockwell Kent

This is a new release of the original 1939 edition.

World Famous Paintings

Richard V. West

Constance Martin

Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge

his admiration for the heroic virtues of their inhabitants, and the mystical strain in his nature, his sense of wonder before the elemental and infinite. These early Monhegan paintings, with their uncompromising clarity, their concentration on the stark forms of the island, and their romantic delight in great expanses of sea, cold northern sky, and brilliant light, were among his most moving works."--Lloyd Goodrich "[We see] Kent's fascination with the wild and remote places of the earth, his admiration for the heroic virtues of their inhabitants, and the mystical strain in his nature, his sense of wonder before the elemental and infinite. These early Monhegan paintings, with their uncompromising clarity, their concentration on the stark forms of the island, and their romantic delight in great expanses of sea, cold northern sky, and brilliant light, were among his most moving works."--Lloyd Goodrich

The Odyssey of Rockwell Kent

Distant Shores

Kent is a charming writer and keen observer of both the land and its people. The book is beautifully and generously illustrated with Kent's distinctive woodcuts."--BOOK JACKET.

Rockwell Kent

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