When you have the famed Rockwell Kent's works displayed at the New York State Museum in New York, it becomes the most eagerly awaited latest news in the art world. The Museum situated on Madison Avenue is scheduled to host a collection of some of the best paintings of this renowned artist in May 2009.
Let me first tell you something about the background of this painter, writer, illustrator, and printer. Rockwell Kent (1882-1971) was born in Tarrytown, NY. It was the same year that Edward Hopper and George Bellows, fellow American painters, were born in. Kent lived much of his early life in New York City. While in his mid-40s, he moved to Adirondack to a farmstead that he called Asgaard. Many of his paintings have been rendered there.
From his early work Kent is shown to have a Modernist approach. Moreover, his paintings that featured Monhagen Island won great critical acclaim. His brushwork has been seen as decidedly athletic and the variations in colors used by him are bold. He was also a prolific illustrator and in Moby Dick and Canterbury Tales you have one of his best works in this category. Later he took to mural painting and indulged in his pursuits of lithographs and bookmaking.
His wife Sally Kent Gordon bequeathed a most balanced and complete collection of his works to the Plattsburgh State Art Museum. It is through an initiative by Cecilia M. Esposito, the director of that museum that an exhibition of his works has been now scheduled in the New York State Museum (NYSM).
Some of the best works of Rockwell Kent in the collection at Plattsburgh are to be shown in the NYSM. It is envisaged that the residents of New York City and the international tourists and art connoisseurs who visit it in large numbers will get an opportunity to view and appreciate the contribution of Kent to art.
The exhibition will feature the entire breadth of Kent's unique contribution to art and so it is an opportunity not to be missed. It will feature his murals, illustrations, paintings, books written by him, advertisement art, dinnerware, photographs, prints, and bookplates. Besides these, the exhibition will feature a documentary on the life and works of Rockwell Kent and a book Rockwell Kent - The Art of the Bookplate. Both of these will be up for sale in the NYSM shop.
It is important to remember that Rockwell Kent was honored with the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967 by the erstwhile Soviet Union. Today's art lovers in Russia can also get an opportunity to view Kent's art up close with a visit to the NYSM in May 2009.
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