NOV. 1 - 4 PART 1: ONWARD TO TIERRA DEL FUEGO

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL
100 YEARS LATER
by Doug Capra © 2018

Part I – Onward to Tierra del Fuego

November 1-4, 2019

ABOVE – “Resurrection Dream.” Resurrection Bay in late October 2019. Photo by Jim Pfeiffenberger.

BELOW – Another day, another mood at Resurrection Bay in late October 2019. Fox Island is at center. Capra photo.

A Damp Drizzly November in My Soul

I won’t say the romance of Alaska has died for Rockwell Kent by the time Olson leaves Vermont – but perhaps his idealism has been replaced by the reality of his new situation. He’s finally getting some recognition. As he leaves Alaska and settles in Vermont, part of him most likely always knows that regardless of whether he achieves success or not, Fox Island will fade into a dream or memory. It’s no accident he ends Wilderness with, Ah, God. And now the world again! By the time Olson is gone, he has probably decided he won’t be going back to Alaska. He considers Iceland again, but ultimately decides for southward toward the bottom of the world. He carries the disillusionment he had with America while in Alaska with him to Vermont. In Feb. 1919 he wrote to Ferdinand Howald from Fox Island, I have the gloomiest forebodings of the future of art in such state as ours. Kent’s Alaska letters to Carl Zigrosser talk of isolating himself from society, and creating for his children an age of chivalry where knightly ideals exist. It isn’t only his son who had internalized the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table while in Alaska.

ABOVE – On Fox Island, Kent is reading Rockie the tales of King Arthur and his Knights. The boy takes it to heart and lives out the fantasy. Illustration from Wilderness.

BELOW -- Associated Press article from the Nov. 5, 1918 issue of the Quad-City Times (Davenport, Iowa)

He and Zigrosser correspond about the American, French and British Expeditionary Forces trying to crush the Bolsheviks in Russia. Back home less than six months, Kent writes to Olson, The hope of the world lies in the Russian idea of Freedom. Not long before leaving Alaska, he calls himself an anarchist. He wants to be left alone. The true ideal is to be the thing yourself. Like Henry David Thoreau, he’s not interested in joining communes like Brook Farm or Fruitlands. He wants to build his own cabin by the shores of his personal Walden Pond. He wants his family. He wants his wife. He wants fame and success. He wants solitude. He wants society. He wants adventure. He wants complete freedom. He wants it all.

In January 1919 he had written to Zigrosser from Alaska, I think that the individual must have such unlimited freedom for spiritual development that even the encouragement of his thoughts impinges on his liberty. Praise will often forge fetters when criticism would only have inspired independence. Really it’s rank blasphemy to tamper so much with the soul. Money matters still concern him. He must find a consistent way of earning a living. His Alaska paintings are not selling as well as his pen and inks did the year before, but the reviews are at worst mixed, at best flattering. Wilderness gets consistently fine reviews and sells well, although Kent is neither satisfied with the text he had to eliminate nor with how the book itself is produced. But he visualizes a creative process now – find some sponsors, head out on a new adventure, paint, sketch, and produce an illustrated book. It worked with Alaska.

The marriage is not working for either Rockwell or Kathleen. His wife’s last few letters to him in Alaska – some which probably didn’t arrive before he left and which he read upon his return – may have contributed to their conflicts. Rockwell writes about their lack understanding each other’s words; Kathleen agrees. They’re speaking different languages. She partially blames herself because she believes she can’t express herself well in writing. Kathleen has hopes for their marriage, but makes it clear that they have much to discuss when Rockwell returns. These discussions probably didn’t go over very well. Another son, Gordon is born in the fall of 1920. Though Kent could be harsh and perfectionist, he loves his children -- but the baby is another mouth to feed – and he isn’t getting the solitude he needs to work. Now that he is incorporated and has investors, he must produce as promised.

ABOVE – Kent and his family at “Egypt,” their farm near Arlington, Vermont. About 1921. Standing in the back from left, Rockwell and Kathleen, holding Gordon. In front from left, Rockie, Kathleen, Barbara, Clara. Photo from the Rockwell Kent Gallery at Plattsburgh State University, NY.

His theories used to educate Rockie on Fox Island attracted attention. The children are offered enrollment at the progressive Edgewood School in Greenwich, Connecticut. While they’re gone, Kent moves into his small studio cabin, begins a novel, produces woodblock prints, and outlines some essays on modern artists. No longer associated with Knoedler’s, Marie Sterner creates The Junior Art Patrons of America, and plans her first exhibition. As Kent’s work is more in demand, he depends upon Sterner for advice and gives her the first but non-exclusive opportunity to sell his art. She’s one of the few who can offer him honest criticism. He does a drawing for the catalogue for her first exhibition, and Sterner finds it unacceptable – “slipshod in execution” – she tells him. It takes several attempts to please her but he does it willingly and she accepts one to promote her first show. Kent is the featured artist and sells two paintings for $3500 and $2500.

ABOVE –  Mrs. Albert (Marie) Sterner. From the May 8, 1921 New York Herald. 

BELOW -- The drawing on the ad below is the one Kent drew that Sterner finally found acceptable. From the May 8, 1921 New York Herald. 

BELOW -- Article about the Sterner show in the April 24, 1921 issue of the New York Herald.

Sterner helps promote Kent and is able to attract the right clientele to her shows. All this means Rockwell is often in New York. He has burst through the wall of thorns he begged Kathleen to build around their Vermont refuge to protect him from temptations. While visiting some new influential friends at the Long Island estate of Ralph and Frederika Pulitzer, Kent meets a woman David Traxel calls Lydia in his biography of Kent. Rockwell mentions no name in his autobiography, It’s Me O Lord, but introduces the story with a reference to the relics of Tutankhamen’s tomb currently on display in New York. They found wild oat seeds in the tomb and they sprouted, even after 30 centuries, Kent notes. Wild oats, I was to learn, can last if not for centuries, for years. And the soil of America and of New York in particular, the temperature and humidity of New York in the post-war decade, would prove ideal for their germination. Not that I sowed the oats; carried about with me they just slipped out. And the crop, threatening to overwhelm me with its luxuriousness, was soon to drive me to that far southern Land of Fire, Tierra del Fuego. Here we see an insight into Kent's character his friend Carl Zigrosser noted -- that the artist’s adventurous escapes could often be connected with his complex romantic involvements. Kent continues: One didn’t look for trouble; trouble – garlanded and wreathed in smiles – just came...’Don’t play with trouble,’ warns the adage: well, we joked and played with her. So they teased her as they walked along, Only a witch could lure two men to walk with her on a day like this. Is this an enchanted wood where you are leading us? What ordeal do we have to face?” Lydia played their game. Just wait; you’ll see, she said.

As they approached a pond, Lydia challenged them, I am going to run around the pond. And whichever of you swims across to meet me on the other side, I will be his. Away she went. Kent was smitten, and adds, If she had looked back she would have snapped the spell: she didn’t. And then Kent reveals an important truth about his personality. He writes, Bewitched – less by herself than by the challenge – in no time I stripped off my outer clothes and shoes. Wading at first, then swimming, I reached the other shore – and her. Trouble? Up to my neck I’d plunged in it; she, as the years would prove, had only wet her shoes. With temptations like this, it may have first been the challenge as much as the sex and romance, that impelled him forward. Kent was an extremely competitive individual. By the spring of 1922, Kent reveals – and begins with the word Fortunately -- the consequence of his plunge had become utterly unbearable. Kathleen may have learned of the affair. Kent’s finances looked good, and it seemed a good time get away.

SIDE NOTE – I need to reemphasize that during this time period, Rockwell Kent is hardly unique in his attitudes toward free love. He’s probably no worse, and perhaps tamer than many. That doesn’t excuse how his behavior causes his wife to suffer –but as we do with many artists and writers – we need to look at his work objectively for its value. I could list dozens of names of artists, writers, politicians from the period – mostly men, but women, too – who either cheated clandestinely or had arrangements – and whose correspondence was much less prudish than Rockwell’s and Kathleen’s. The Nov. 7, 2019 issue of the New York Review of Books, contains a review by Regina Marler of two books about the relationship between and among Alfred Steiglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Paul Strand, and Rebecca (Beck) Salsbury. Edward Steichen once wrote of Steiglitz: Stieglitz only tolerated people close to him when the completely agreed with him and were of service. Steiglitz lived with O’Keeffe, who was 23 years younger than him, after separating from his wife. The two married after his divorce in 1924. Steiglitz died in 1946. After her husband’s death, now in her 80’s, O’Keeffe published a memoir. She called him a very exciting person, but added He was either loved or hated – there wasn’t much in between. Indeed, O’Keeffe admitted she favored his art work to the man himself. I believe it was the work that kept me with him, though I loved him as a human being, I could see his strengths and weaknesses. I put up with what seemed to me a good deal of contradictory nonsense because of what seemed clear and bright and wonderful. I’m not drawing a direct comparison, but there are echos of Rockwell Kent in those quote as well as many other highly creative people.

BELOW – The article quoted above, from the Nov. 7, 2019 issue of the New York Review of books.

As Kent heads off to Tierra del Fuego, he has valid reasons for hope, at least for his career if not for his marriage. During the next several years his career will build quickly. By late 1926,  R.R. Connelly, a respected Chicago printing company, gives Kent a choice of books to design as the first in a series of classics to help improve the art of book design in America. It’s no coincidence that Rockwell Kent selects the Herman Melville’s classic.

BELOW -- The three-volume special and limited edition of Rockwell Kent's illustrated Moby Dick by Herman Melville. All other illustrations below from the trade edition.

Rockwell Kent could identify with Ishmael’s restlessness as Melville's story begins:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.

SOURCES -- In addition to the Kent letters at the Archives of American Art, I want to acknowledge An American Saga: The Life and Times of Rockwell Kent (1980) by David Traxel, and Kent's biography, It's Me O Lord (1955).

NEXT ENTRY

PART 2

ONWARD TO TIERRA DEL FUEGO, EUROPE,

GREENLAND, AND THROUGH THE 1920’S