OCT. 6-10 PART 7: LARS MATT OLSON IN VERMONT

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018-19

Part 7 Lars Matt Olson in Vermont

Oct. 6-10, 2019

ABOVE – This is probably the cabin Kent built for Olson’s Vermont stay. At left is Rockwell Kent, Olson is in the middle, and Rockie is at right. One can observe how much weight Kent lost in Alaska, and how tall young Rockie grew between age eight and nine. I’m assuming this is Olson’s cabin rather than Kent’s studio-cabin because of the obvious corrals and the elevation. (See the photo below) Also, part of Olson’s job with the Kent family was to take care of the animals, especially the milk-cow which was very important with new baby Gordon’s arrival. Thus, the corrals.

BELOW – Kent in front of his Vermont studio-cabin. Kent is at right looking at a painting with an unknown man. Note the background which suggests its elevation. At right, the cabin today. Photo from “Rockwell Kent’s ‘Egypt’: Shadow and Light in Vermont by Jamie Franklin, in Rockwell Kent’s “Egypt” by Jamie Franklin and Jake Milgram Wien (2012). Both period photos from the Collection of Plattsburgh State Art Museum, New York. Bequest of Sally Kent Gordon.

“Here In This Eastern Wilderness.”

Old Olson, whose loneliness following our departure from Fox Island we had foreseen, had suffered a slight stroke. He wisely decided to abandon island and, coming East, accept the asylum we had offered him for his declining years. He was to have a cabin near us. I built one and equipped it. Unhappily his tenure of it and his stay with us were, by his own choice, of but a few weeks’ duration. He went out west again, to end his days with friends in North Dakota.

     from It’s Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent (1955), pp. 351-2.

Rockwell Kent wrote two short chapters about the Alaska trip in his autobiography. There’s nothing about the “unquiet” adventure I’ve been exploring, and little about Olson. What he wanted told about the trip he put into the Wilderness manuscript. What he had wanted published – that wasn’t – he put into the 1970 special edition, later reprinted in 1996 by Wesleyan University Press. The last we hear of Olson in It’s Me O Lord is in the quote above – and that is far from the whole story.

As Kent had written in his April 6, 1920 letter to Olson, his arrival in Vermont was sure to be of the heartiest welcome here that you ever had in your life. Kent’s letters to friends about Olson’s appearance attests to his joy and excitement at the old Swede’s arrival. To some extent, Kent was trying to recreate the best of Fox Island in Vermont – and Olson was necessary to create that secular trinity that had included himself and his son. Kent built himself a cabin – High on a nearby ridge that overlooked the valley to the north and south and knelt at the foot of Equinox…

ABOVE – Rockwell Kent standing near his Arlington studio, c. 1923. Image from the Kent/Whiting photo album. Private Collection. Photographed from Rockwell Kent’s “Egypt”: Shadows & Light in Vermont (2012) by Jamie Franklin and Jake Milgram Wien.

BELOW – At 3,848 feet, Mount Equinox is one of the highest mountains in Southern Vermont, the largest peak in the Taconic Range. Begun in 1941, today’s Skyline Drive shown here takes motorists to the top where they can enjoy views of the Green, White, Adirondack, Berkshire, and Taconic Mountain Ranges. Photo Source

BELOW – Mount Equinox, Winter (1921). Kent did several paintings of this mountain, one aspect of the landscape in Vermont that connected him to Alaska.

Art Institute of Chicago. Source.

The cabin, or shack as he calls it, wasn’t only his studio – the barn had served him in that capacity while finishing the Alaska paintings. This new structure, far enough away from the farmhouse, gave him the occasional solitude from family life yet close to the social and intellectual stimulation he required. It served him as a convenient point of departure for my outdoor work and, in the winter time, a handy refuge for frozen realist. Here too…I cooked and slept. I had grown accustom to cabin life; I liked it. 

ABOVE -- A drawing of Kent's Vermont cabin from It's Me O Lord (1955). Note the stump with the axe embedded in it.

BELOW -- A drawing of the Fox Island cabin from the journal. Note again, the stump and the axe.

Kent admitted that his Vermont cabin was flimsy and quickly-built – the single-thickness floor was raised above ground; it was framed only on the outside, and covered only with roofing paper. It had an iron stove with a pipe that in winter issued forth a reassuring smoke attesting to its inside comfort and warmth. His wood lot stood nearby, and the cutting that I did served the triple purpose of keeping the chunk stove burning, keeping me in shape, and opening new vistas of Green Mountain grandeur. Vermont became an extension of Kent’s pioneering adventure in Alaska – hewing the trees, clearing the land, building his own home. He also made sure the cabin door yard was littered with wood chips from a sawbuck and chopping block that – just like the one near the door of his Alaska cabin – had an axe embedded in it – that showed it to be some fellow’s home. It was in this cabin that Kent painted many of his Vermont works, including Dear Season, The Trapper, and Shadows of Evening.

ABOVE – The Trapper, 1921. Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

BELOW – Shadows of Evening, 1921-23. Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

After a heart-felt welcome by Kent and the family, Olson was shown his cabin. Kent wrote in his July 1 letter to Carl Zigrosser: He brought along a letter from a friend of ours in Seward who has been seeing a great deal of him. The letter – probably from the person in Seward with whom Kent had been in touch to help Olson make arrangements for his trip east -- was probably sealed, due to its personal nature.

         Mr. Olson is really leaving at last for the promised land. I am writing this the day before he sails {June 17, 1920}, and have just come home from talking {with} him. The dear old man: he sure is happy now that everything is finished and ready.

His worship of you and your family is wonderful and beautiful. He cant {sic.} talk of other subjects long before changing back to the one great interest of his life -- you and yours.

 I have had many talks with him about you and his prospective life at your mountain home, and his own great and strong desire is to be of service to you in some way. Nothing would be too ridiculous or hard for him to undertake if it would amuse you or help you ever so little.

“He has told me of his plans to be a sort of curiosity from the wilds to your friends. Also to be a storehouse of information. I have helped him once or twice to select postcards which he could use to illustrate his talks while fascinating your friends.

He intends to dress in any old thing and act in any old way if you can use him as a model.

There is not the slightest self-interest in all this; only the one thought of being an asset to you. If he could not do anything else but tend the pigs he would be happy. I never expect to know of a more beautiful attachment than his for you. How he is going to love your charming children.

After quoting this letter from a Seward friend, Kent asks Zigrosser a favor: Now: I want to ask you please to write the old man a little letter of welcome back to civilization, just few words. For you {are} one of the few people of whom he knows – here in this eastern wilderness. And every little thing that can help to make himself think that he’s really among not just a few but many friends will add much to my dear friend’s happiness…I’m ever so happy that Olson is here! And am eager for you to see him. Kent had probably told Olson about Zigrosser while in Alaska. Perhaps Zigrosser wrote to Olson – although I have found no such letters. Kent does assume that Olson at least knows of him.

It’s important to understand that the plan was for Olson to live out his final years with Rockwell Kent and his family. Though perhaps at this point pondering his next adventure to Tierra del Fuego – Kent has no notion of the tremendous success he will achieve through the 1920’s. Good notices are one thing. Selling the pen and inks was encouraging. Robert Henri taught artists like Rockwell Kent to forget about earning a living in art. To achieve that kind of success you had to pander to the crowds and not follow your own genius. Of course, Henri could afford to give that kind of advice. He had money, as did some of his students. But not Rockwell Kent, nor Henri devotee, John Sloan. When Sloan taught at the Art Students’ League in New York, he’d tell his students in the first class that he would teach them nothing about how to earn a living with art. Those that did most often painted to please popular tastes rather striking out on their own. During his lifetime, he sold relatively few paintings and depended upon his engravings and teaching for financial support. He learned from his book commissions, which he needed to survive, that American illustration style was still in the 19^th century – even though he had blazed some new trails with his Philadelphia newspaper work. At one point approaching his 60’s, Sloan had 1000 of his paintings – his life’s work – stored in his basement. In his 60’s he copied many museums with a form letter reminding them that he was getting on in years and probably wouldn’t live much longer. When artists died, he told them, the price of their art went up. In the letter he offered them a deal right now while he was still living. Only one museum took him up on the offer and bought a painting. This was the world of American art for those who insisted on going their own way.

ABOVE – John Sloan. Wikipedia photo.

BELOW – The City from Greenwich Village (1922) by John Sloan. Source

Kent’s Newfoundland paintings didn’t sell, and neither did the Alaska paintings. This is 1920. The exhibit of Robert Henri’s “Eight” in 1913 opened the doors a crack. The Independent Artists show of 1917 helped, but no one was buying. Those with the money to purchase art, as well as the museums and dealers, were still focused on the foreign art – especially the French Impressionists. Crowds attended many of the Avant Garde and Independent exhibits. Some were impressed, others offended and reviews were mixed – but few if any paintings sold. If it wasn’t for Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Juliana Force, Dr. and Mrs. Theodore Wagner, Ferdinand Howald, and other patrons like them  – no paintings would have ended up in museums, for most curators wouldn’t touch modern art. Fortunately, gallery owners like Marie Sterner, Alfred Stieglitz, Charles Daniel, and William MacBeth helped with promotion and sales. (Source for information about Sloan and and his times, from John Sloan: Artist and Rebel by John Loughery (1995).

Now that Rockwell and Kathleen are together in Vermont, we have no revealing letters between them as we did during the Alaska months. It may be that, with Kent home with her and the children and away from Hildegarde and city temptations, Kathleen still has hopes for their marriage. After years of moving from place to place, from rental house to apartment to another rental – Kathleen finally has a home of her own. It’s reasonable to assume that at Olson’s arrival Kent may consider Vermont as his permanent home and his marriage secure. “Egypt” will be the base from which he can launch his adventures.

Olson is devoted to Kent. He sees his role now as a helper with Kent’s career, an authentic, even comic prop to accompany the Alaska book. After all, he is a main character in Wilderness.  I think it is also reasonable to assume that Olson sees his future in Vermont, living his final days as friend and caretaker at “Egypt.” For a time at least, Kent and Olson get along well. In August 1920 Kent writes to Zigrosser: Olson’s box has come. It contained lots of interesting stuff, things at least I was glad to see. But they made me homesick for my wilderness. Among the rest were two pipes. These Olson solemnly presents to you and me. The most pretentious one is for you. I’m sending it. It is curious to see the outcropping of sentiment in this old man. The gift of these pipes is highly significant to him, - and we must hold it so.

In the letter Kent also notes that he has just finished the first volume of Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship by Goethe. That truly thrills me, Kent wrote. The second volume will probably be next, Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years. Kent is still embedded within German Romantic Idealism. He has a vivid imagination. Whatever he reads – Emerson, Thoreau, Goethe, Nietzsche, Blake, Nansen – he takes in fully and lives in that moment. As David Traxel notes about this period of the artist's life, in An American Saga: The Life and Times of Rockwell Kent (1980): Kent’s energy and ambition were too tempestuous for a placid country life, his desire for experience and adventure too strong. He began to feel restless and confined. There were many reasons for his mood at this time, but Wilhelm Meister may be feeding into it.

NEXT ENTRY

PART 8

LARS MATT OLSON LEAVES ALASKA

AND HEADS TO VERMONT