NOVEMBER 7 - 10: THE 1920'S - WITH BLACK TIE AND DINNER COAT

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

Part 2 – Back from Tierra del Fuego

November 7-10, 2019

ABOVE – Another Misty Day in Seward – Photo by Jim Pfeiffenberger. Looking northwest. The slope of Mount Marathon at far left. Benson Mountain in the center. Mount Ascension at right.

BELOW – Captain Joshua Slocum on the Spray traveling through the Strait of Magellan. Pen and ink by Rockwell Kent, from A Treasury of Sea Stories (A.S. Barnes & Company, 1948)

The 1920s

With Black Tie and Dinner Coat

In the decade of the 1920s, Rockwell Kent was perhaps more “social” than at any other period of his career. He often went out in society with black tie and dinner coat, and moved, in New York or at Long Island estates, in the circle of the Ralph Pulitzers, the Watson Webbs, the Whitneys, and Gordon Abbott and his wife, Katherine, who later became Mrs. J. Cheever Cowdin. (134)

         Carl Zigrosser in A World of Art and Museums (1975)

By the fall of 1922 when Rockwell Kent leaves for South America, he has changed. His idealism has come up against the rock of his success – and he’s caught in the middle with only the hard place in the other direction. As David Traxel writes: A hard edge enters Kent’s judgments about this time. It is as if success had taken as its price his innocence and naivete. He was still sincere about his art, but he was also fully aware that to gain and hold an audience one had to “play the rotten game…Under the press of his new love affair, Rockwell’s trips to the city became more frequent and of longer duration. He moved with a sophisticated crowd, spending weekends with the Pulitzers at their Manhasset estate, and bachelor evenings at the Coffee House Club, where “Crownie” Crowninshield held court. He occasionally visited Kathleen and his children in Connecticut, and they spend summers together at Egypt. (An American Saga: The Life and Times of Rockwell Kent, 127-128)

This hard edge of judgment pertains to his marriage as well. The idealistic notion of transferring his Northern Paradise to Vermont has evaporated. Perhaps Lars Olson’s departure from Egypt represents its symbolic end. From the time he arrives home from Alaska in April 1919 – until late summer 1920 – there’s little correspondence between Rockwell and Kathleen. They are often together. All had gone well that first winter on the farm in Vermont, as David Traxel writes -- But soon after Rockwell’s painting exhibition the experience began to sour. (124) He’s in and out of New York more often, confronted with the business of success, inundated with projects, restless for another adventure – and vividly aware of the beautiful women he meets who show interest in him. We begin to see the change in Kathleen’s letters to him beginning in the fall of 1920. Kathleen is pregnant and probably in Connecticut where the children are going to school and later in the hospital. After “babe,”, as she calls him, is born on Oct. 1, 1920. Kathleen probably spends time with her family in Western Massachusetts. (Kathleen’s letters show that by mid-Jan. 1921 they haven yet named the child. She suggests to Rockwell the name “Conrad.” Her mother has other ideas, as you’ll see below.)They decide upon Gordon) Kent is at the Vermont farm and in and out of New York City. Farm life isn’t what he expected, especially with Kathleen gone. He’s trying to focus on his art but is distracted with all kinds of chores – including cooking, mending and cleaning – jobs Kathleen usually does. But she’s not around. Below are Kathleen’s letters to Rockwell. His letters in response are not filed in sequence, but it isn’t difficult to surmise what he’s writing by reading between the lines of her letters. I’ve added my thoughts as to what’s going on.

BELOW – Kathleen’s Dec. 9, 1920 letter to Rockwell. She and the children are probably at Pittsfield, Massachusetts with her mother. Note at the bottom she tells Kent that her mother suggests the baby be called either “Sandy” or “Jesus.”

Sept. 22, 1920

I am so glad that you really find a little more time & peace in which to work. I thought you would and… before I get back you will miss me terribly; even if I bring you another daughter instead of a son.

Sept. 28, 1920

It is very sweet of you to say you miss me, even if it is only as cook and housekeeper. For me, sure. I know I have been little else to you lately, but I hope to do better, and if you are willing & should let ‘things go’ a little more in the house, I want to sit with you in the studio when {allowed to} & in other words I don’t want to be just your housekeeper. I will be something more or nothing. Kathleen may be in hospital by this time. Her son Gordon is born on Oct. 1st. She feels left out of his life and, apparently, doesn’t want to disappoint him with another daughter. Over the years she has done much to help with his art and promote his career. While he is in Alaska and she is in New York, Kathleen works often for his advancement. Kathleen writes, Please don’t say you have got to give up painting for the present. That’s very foolish. You bought the farm just so you could have a place to paint & write, etc. Rockwell can’t stand the unpicked fruit going to waste. Kathleen writes, You know…that the happiness of all of us depends upon your being able to work at your own work and be happy. They have enough apples and other things to keep them going, she tells him and ends with, I do love you so. I wish the farm weren’t making so much trouble between us. I almost hate the place now. In early 1919, Kathleen is elated with the idea of the farm. Finally, a permanent home combined with a studio for her husband – a place far away from the temptations of the city. By now that has changed. The family is rarely all together at Egypt.

Oct. 24, 1920

I hope you’ll always want me as much as you do now; and wish that absence weren’t the only thing to make the heart grow fonder. Kathleen fears in her “bones” that Rockwell writes her a “peevish” letter because she isn’t returning home soon. She writes. I know you want me home and I want very much to come, but I know, if you don’t, that there is or will be much work that will have to be done by me. The baby’s washing for one thing.

Oct. 26, 1920

Well, dear, the storm that I expected, has broken. Your letter enclosing (Overton’s??) has just arrived. You may think I am very inconsiderate of you; maybe just now I am. I am considering myself above the rest of my family, but way down in your heart you know that I don’t often do that and that very few people give as much of themselves to their families as I do to mine. Isn’t that so? Of course I am well, but I’m not strong. I wanted to get some strength before I went home to you all…Now, when you come for me, don’t please come with a “mad” aire. I don’t want to go home feeling unhappy & upset. I do my “damndest” for you all the time but this minute I consider myself only. Rockwell wants Kathleen join him in Vermont and Kathleen needs more rest. It seems clear that Kent is criticizing her for not thinking of the family but only of herself.

Christmas is stressful. Rockwell has given Kathleen the choice as to where they will spend the holiday. Then, after she has decided, he gets a letter from his mother and changes plans at the last minute. She is upset that he makes decisions like that without consulting her.

ABOVE – Kathleen’s Dec. 14, 1920 letter to Rockwell. She tells him she keeps forgetting to by writing paper when she goes shopping – this this epistle on small note sheets.

Jan. 17, 1921

Rockwell has changed how they will handle the family’s finances. Apparently, he wants to exert more control yet still have Kathleen take charge of his business matters. And he has eliminated her allowance. Money matters can often be issues between most husbands and wives. But this incident must be put into the larger context of the relationship between Rockwell and Kathleen. She writes, That arrangement you have made cannot remain for I don’t know what your expenses are and you don’t know what mine are, and we will never know where we stand as to money. You know I’ve no business head and you’ve got to change.

Undated letter (Around Jan. 17, 1921)

I am worse off than ever before. Why did you do it! I don’t care what you spend as long as you give me an allowance. What you have over expenses is yours to do what you will with and the same with me. Now it’s done I suppose it can’t be helped so don’t forget to send me a check book. After depositing your monthly check I will send you a check for that amount, deducting perhaps twenty-five dollars. Could you spare that? It’s a perfectly idiotic arrangement that you have made. I didn’t ask for it and I didn’t want it, and you knew that! And here I am in tears again when I thought I had entirely braced up again. Please don’t be so hasty and impulsive again without considering my wishes when your action concerns me. If you had said” twenty-five dollars is all the allowance I can spare you now” all well and good; but instead you say you cannot need any allowance, you (aren’t) so hard up. Then you say I must go to N.Y., (to) board with Aunty (Wilson) and have a good time, you will send me money there {and} I don’t get any & so I don’t know where I’m at. Don’t you see that it can be rather annoying?

BELOW – A page from Kathleen’s Jan. 17, 1921 letter to Rockwell. She writes:

Rockwell, dear, your letter is just received and all I can say is why do you insist on making me miserable with that money arrangement. You know I don’t want it that way, all I asked and all I want is an allowance. It was the very best money arrangement we ever had. This way you have fixed it I am worse off than ever before. Why did you do it?

Jan. 20, 1921

They’re writing about some of Rockwell’s art for sale in New York shops. Kathleen writes of helping him with his work in the past -- what seems a specific reference to work she did in New York while he was in Alaska. She writes, I took real pride in doing things for you connected with your work, and I do still. I always feel very important in that role and quite deserving of your name. What is the trouble about it? Can I do anything for you concerning it or anything in the city?

Jan. 26, 1921

You letter today was very lovely & {you} were your old self. The two before that were quite formal, as if we were acquaintances. At last you realize that you are only happy when you are away from the family, and if one of us can be happy that way so it shall be until we have discovered how we can both be happy. You ask me to give you more freedom! I can’t do that without drowning myself and the children. Our house can never be the happy one it ought to be, for you can’t be happy in it. I cannot try and concern myself less about your affairs; you have shut me too completely out of your life already. I want to say so much and can say so little for I haven’t the gift you have of writing with words. All I can says is I’m sick over it all. After all I have given of myself and all that I have suffered for you – to be thrust out into this rotten world with the cares of a family and no companion or help mate – that… {he} loves me only when I’m a hundred miles away. Could you be happy just paying your bills and doing your work! No. You couldn’t and neither could I so why suggest such a foolish way of finding happiness.

These letters seem to revert back to same old marriage dynamic – Kathleen tries to be positive, knowing Rockwell needs to be happy for the whole family to be happy, yet upset and angry at him for his excessive control of her life as well as his apparent need to be away from her as much as possible. She seems to have a clearer version of where all this is going. They’ve been married twelve years. Not long before he left for Alaska with Rockie -- Kathleen wrote him that if they were stay together she’d just have to accept the requirement to share him with another woman. By this time – 1921 – Rockwell has most likely already began new relationships. Does Kathleen know? Probably. He has become his old, demanding self, and he is often back in the city. The family is no longer together often at the farm. Rockie is at school and Kathleen doesn’t seem him often. She misses him dearly. The other children are getting older, and they’ll be off to school soon.  For years Kathleen has gone back and forth – learning of his affairs; experiencing hurt, anger and rage; accepting his apologies and promises to reform; forgiving him; then learning he has begun yet another relationship.

By the time Rockwell Kent leaves for Tierra del Fuego in the fall of 1922, both he and Kathleen probably see that the marriage over. The next few years will prove them correct.

SOURCES -- It's Me O Lord by Rockwell Kent. Other sources mentioned in the text. Letters are from the online Kent collection at the Archives of American Art.

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