FEB. 25, 2020 WORKING TOWARD ROCKWELL KENT'S 1935 TRIP TO ALASKA

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

Working Toward Rockwell Kent’s 1935 Visit To Alaska

Feb. 24, 2019

ABOVE – Rockwell and Kathleen Kent’s children in Antibes,France, circa 1923, From right: Rockie, Kathleen, Clara, Barbara, Gordon. After returning from his Tierra del Fuego journey, Rockwell sent Kathleen and the children off to France while he retreated to his farm at Arlington, Vermont to work on his second book and complete his new paintings.

BELOW – Rockwell and Kathleen Kent’s children at Nice, France circa 1923. From left: Kathleen, Clara, Barbara, Gordon. They are dressed for and have participated in the famous Nice Carnival of Flowers. Rockie may have been at times back in the states with his father.

My original intent was to move quickly from about 1922-23 to 1935 when Rockwell Kent returned to Alaska under a grant from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to paint a mural for the Post Office Building in Washington D.C. about the vast mail service – from Alaska to Puerto Rico. I published an article years ago about the Alaska part of that story, and have since done most of my research for rest of the story. That entry will eventually come.

ABOVE – Rockwell Kent’s daughters with their dolls on Monhegan Island, Maine, circa 1919. From left: Clara, Kathleen, Barbara.  

In my wanderings on my way to 1935 I’ve found too many other stories that I believe deserve telling. These narratives help better place Rockwell Kent within the context of his family and the times. As I dig deeper, I find that some of these stories have been told but not widely. One example is from Part 4 of my entry about The Allure and Magnetism ofRockwell Kent.

There I tell the story of journalist Gladys Baker’s revealing interview with Rockwell Kent in 1928. I write: “Rockwell showed her a painting called “Denis,” one he had done in Ireland a few years back. It was that of a young man lying beside a lake, Baker wrote, and in the distance were rugged mountains giving the effect of infinite space. “This may be Denis McGinley, an elderly man Kent and Frances met in Ireland a few years earlier on their honeymoon. Kent mentions him in his autobiography, It’s Me O Lord (IMOL 1955). Rockwell and Frances spend time with McGinley and his family, eating and drinking. Kent writes, Then Denis in his cracked old voice would sing old Irish songs, and we'd know why he was reputed such a singer in his youth. Kent and Frances decided that he will stay and paint more in Ireland and she will return to the states. In this passage from IMOL, Kent may be writing about his last dinner with the McGinley's: What toasts we drank! What songs we sang! "Mr. Kint," said Denis, who was as fine an orator as he once had been a singer, "I want to say that never in all our years have we known such a lady and gintleman as Mrs. King and you. May all happiness attind you all your lives. And may god bless you both. "Denis McGinley," I replied, "I've travelled north and south and east and west in search of mountain peaks; but never until here and now have I found peaks whose summits reached so near to God as do you men of Donegal." (pp. 419-422)

Since I wrote that I located two articles by Kent scholar Will Ross in The Kent Collector -- Summer 1991. The first is titled "The Case of the Missing Lecturer;" the second is "Kent Works in the Utah Museum." Ross covers this story quite well. I may summarize the Ross findings later if and when I write about Kent as a lecturer in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s -- but for now, I want to acknowledge that Ross writes about the Denis painting and traces it to where it is today. Ross has written many valuable articles about Kent. I also must credit David Traxel in his 1980 biography of Kent – An American Saga: The Life and Times of Rockwell Kent. I’m amazed at how much he uncovered in his research at a time when there was no internet and the Kent letters were not online. He had neither time nor space to delve deeply into every story, but he at least acknowledges many of them. He had to work through the letters at the Archives of American Art (AAA). I know what that’s like. I made two trips the AAA in the 1980’s to work on the letters.

ABOVE – At left, Rockwell holding Rockie on his shoulders. At right, Kathleen. Photos circa 1910.

Rockwell Kent during these years was a complex personality – not unlike many talent artists and writers. He could be difficult to live with, judgmental, overly critical, and cruel. He could also be loving and generous. He was an idealist and a perfectionist. In an earlier entry

I wrote: “Rockwell Kent was who he was. Years after his death, his third wife, Sally wrote, What is important to consider…is that Rockwell Kent was an incurable romantic and that his creative energies were heightened by the focus being in love gave to his work. He was that way to the end of his long and exceptional life. Nature, of course, in all its untamed and uncharged magnificence was the great stimulus to his art. But one has only to look at the range of his artistic work to see how often the women in his life were subjects and beneficiaries of his creative genius. (her preface to the Baxter Society facsimile edition of The Jewel: A Romance of Fairyland, a handmade, handwritten book Kent made in 1917 for Hildegarde.) In fairness, his women were not merely beneficiaries. Some he truly loved. Others were objects of his philandering. These women suffered as much as they benefited from their relationship with Kent, especially his wives. As his good friend Carl Zigrosser wrote a few years after Kent’s death, he wore out two of his wives.”

During the years I’m covering from pre-World War I through the 1920s, free love was in the air among many artists, writers and intellectuals – indeed, the word intellectual entered the lexicon during this time. I tried to cover some of this topic in another past entry

Rockwell Kent’s chaotic love life was no better, no worse than many of the men (and some women) of this period. I’m neither defending nor judging him nor the free love movement. It’s just the way it was. Kent was many things, an artist, a writer, a laborer, an architect, a carpenter, a lobster fisherman, a political activist and candidate, a lecturer, dairy farmer, etc., etc. He was also son, a brother, husband and a father. Sometimes we neglect that as we focus on his career and art. I’m trying to open up the discussion to show more of that personal side of him – thus the photos throughout this entry. Rockwell Kent had three loving wives. I’ve read many of the letters between him and both Kathleen and Frances. They loved him deeply and he loved them. That doesn’t mean they had no problems – especially Kathleen, for she gave birth to his children and took on the responsibility of raising them. Kent had three beautiful daughters and two handsome sons. He loved them dearly – yet we know how difficult it can be as the spouse or children of famous writers and artists. Consider Robert Frost's children. As Rockwell Kent often said – he wanted it all. Everyone in his life, including himself, had to pay a heavy price to accommodate that philosophy. All this doesn't mean that there wasn't a family life -- difficult as it occasional could be -- that at times was loving and fulfilling.

ABOVE – Rockwell and Kathleen with their family, circa 1916. Kathleen is holding Barbara (at that time still named Hildegarde. The family had recently been ejected from Newfoundland), Rockwell is probably holding little Kathleen, while Clara is standing behind Rockie, at left.

The photos in this entry come from the Kent-Whiting Family Album owned by Danny and Kathi (Finney) Coane. Kathi is the daughter of Kent’s daughter, Kathleen. Kathi and her husband allowed the Bennington Museum in Vermont to digitalize their family photo album. Jamie Franklin at the museum was kind enough to send me those images. Some of the album images have been published. Many have not. I’ve been able to answer several questions by looking through those photos while identifying a few mystery names I’ve encountered in the letters. My thanks go out to both Kathi and Danny who agreed to my use of the photos and Jamie Franklin at the Bennington Museum for sending me the digitized copies.

As we all do, Rockwell Kent played many roles in life, wore many masks. Unlike most of us, he was an extremely talented artist, driven by powerful daemons and forces that affected everyone he encountered. Those who knew him but not well may have either loved or hated him. Those who did know him well most likely experienced significance ambivalence.

NEXT ENTRY

ANOTHER STORY ON THE WAY TO 1935