.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This painting will be included in the catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Richard V. West.
This work is included in Scott R. Ferris's catalogue of artwork by Rockwell Kent (1882-1971). We would like to thank him for his assistance with cataloguing this lot.
Rockwell Kent traveled to Greenland on three occasions between 1929 and 1935. From July 1931 to October 1932, and then again from June 1934 to June 1935, he lived in the small community of Igdlorssuit, on Ubekjendt Eiland (Unknown Island). It was during the latter trip that Kent penned his tome about life in Greenland–Salamina–and painted Iceberg.
Marie Ahnighito Peary, born in Greenland and the daughter of the North Pole explorer Robert Edwin Peary, approved of Kent's observations of the native peoples and the terrain they inhabited. As she wrote in her review of Kent's then newly published Salamina for The Saturday Review: Kent's "word pictures" and illustrations are a "revelation to all those who think of Greenland as a desolate, unimpressive island, peopled with uncouth savages." As she knew from experience, the beauty and grandeur of the land were always present, but it took Kent to capture their majesty, to bring it all back home for the "less adventurous spirits to see and enjoy." (The Saturday Review, October 26, 1935, p. 11)
In Iceberg, also referred to as Sledge Dogs, Greenland, Kent depicts the most reliable means of transportation in the frozen terrain of Greenland: the dog sled. Here the artist is a documentarian as he captures the lifestyle, culture and events of a lost chapter in human history. In his introduction to his book Greenland Journal, he reflects on how his work became a "record, intimate and authentic, of the past, of a way of life that has vanished beyond recall, and of a people the remains of whose ancient, cultural identity are fast being submerged by the tides of 'progress.'" (Greenland Journal, New York, 1962, p. vii)
Before J.J. Ryan purchased Iceberg, Dan Burne Jones (Kent's biographer and author of The Prints of Rockwell Kent: A Catalogue Raisonné) and his wife Jacquie sought to acquire the painting. As Iceberg was already reserved for another collection, the artist set about duplicating the landscape of this composition and combined it thematically with The Artist in Greenland (Pushkin State Museum of Art, Moscow, Russia), to become another self-portrait (The Artist in Greenland, 1960, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland). A related composition, for its use of a dominant iceberg before which stands sledge dogs, is Seal Hunter: Greenland (The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia).
This work is included in Scott R. Ferris's catalogue of artwork by Rockwell Kent (1882-1971). We would like to thank him for his assistance with cataloguing this lot.
Rockwell Kent traveled to Greenland on three occasions between 1929 and 1935. From July 1931 to October 1932, and then again from June 1934 to June 1935, he lived in the small community of Igdlorssuit, on Ubekjendt Eiland (Unknown Island). It was during the latter trip that Kent penned his tome about life in Greenland–Salamina–and painted Iceberg.
Marie Ahnighito Peary, born in Greenland and the daughter of the North Pole explorer Robert Edwin Peary, approved of Kent's observations of the native peoples and the terrain they inhabited. As she wrote in her review of Kent's then newly published Salamina for The Saturday Review: Kent's "word pictures" and illustrations are a "revelation to all those who think of Greenland as a desolate, unimpressive island, peopled with uncouth savages." As she knew from experience, the beauty and grandeur of the land were always present, but it took Kent to capture their majesty, to bring it all back home for the "less adventurous spirits to see and enjoy." (The Saturday Review, October 26, 1935, p. 11)
In Iceberg, also referred to as Sledge Dogs, Greenland, Kent depicts the most reliable means of transportation in the frozen terrain of Greenland: the dog sled. Here the artist is a documentarian as he captures the lifestyle, culture and events of a lost chapter in human history. In his introduction to his book Greenland Journal, he reflects on how his work became a "record, intimate and authentic, of the past, of a way of life that has vanished beyond recall, and of a people the remains of whose ancient, cultural identity are fast being submerged by the tides of 'progress.'" (Greenland Journal, New York, 1962, p. vii)
Before J.J. Ryan purchased Iceberg, Dan Burne Jones (Kent's biographer and author of The Prints of Rockwell Kent: A Catalogue Raisonné) and his wife Jacquie sought to acquire the painting. As Iceberg was already reserved for another collection, the artist set about duplicating the landscape of this composition and combined it thematically with The Artist in Greenland (Pushkin State Museum of Art, Moscow, Russia), to become another self-portrait (The Artist in Greenland, 1960, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland). A related composition, for its use of a dominant iceberg before which stands sledge dogs, is Seal Hunter: Greenland (The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia).