Rockwell Kent "Wilderness" Centennial Journal

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018-19 Part 1 – Wilderness & the Alaska Paintings: 1920 July 21-24, 2019 ABOVE – An ad announcing Wilderness in the March 7, 1920 New York Times . BELOW – An ad announcing the show of Kent’s paintings in the Feb. 29, 1920 New York Herald. this wholeness of essence Wilderness and the Alaska Paintings Part I Places have their identity as flowers or creatures have, their soul, or genius loci. A Place, in nature, is, after all, only a larger more complex organism, a symbiosis of many lives. All inviolate places have this wholeness of essence; their perfection lies in their remaining intact, undisturbed by intrusion of any life which does not itself participate in that harmonious organic unity…Never, in later life, do we experience that sense of perfect arrival that is, in childhood, the term of every walk; we bring the whole of ourselves to the very place, w...

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018-19 Part 3 - Carl Ruggles & Rockwell Kent July 14-18, 2019 ABOVE – Rockwell Kent, Rockwell Kent Gallery, Plattsburgh State University, Plattsburgh, N.Y. During his first few years in Vermont, Kent makes brief trips to New York and meets with Ruggles, his wife, Charlotte and their son, Micah. Back in Vermont, he writes to the composer on Oct. 15, 1919. Today I begin again to paint! So it’s a great day in my life. His book with the pen and inks is being edited, designed and set it type, so now he can prepare for the 1920 show of the paintings. From the time they meet, Kent and Ruggles not only encourage one another but also do what they can to help each other’s careers. During 1920, Ruggles is giving music lessons to Mrs. Janet MacDonald Grace, wife of the shipping magnet  Joseph P. Grace of Grace Lines ( Second Link ). She loved Kent’s cover design for Toys – e...