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Rockwell Kent 1882 - 1971
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
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Description
- Rockwell Kent
- American Steel Industry: American Railroads
- signed Rockwell Kent (lower right)
- brush, pen, ink, pencil and gouache on paper
- 12 3/4 by 16 3/4 inches
- (32.4 by 42.5 cm)
- Executed in 1944.
Provenance
Charles Bruning Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1944 (commissioned from the artist)
Private Collection, Crystal Lake, Illinois
By descent to the present owner (his son)
Private Collection, Crystal Lake, Illinois
By descent to the present owner (his son)
Catalogue Note
The present work was commissioned by the Charles Bruning Company, a manufacturer of drafting and blueprinting supplies. Kent obtained this commission, along with several others, through Henry R. Davis of the Rapid Blueprint Company beginning in the late 1930s. The drawings he executed were reproduced as posters and oversized holiday greeting cards, which were given to the company's clients.
The card featuring the present work was accompanied by the following statement: "It has been our custom for the past years to portray, on our Greeting Cards, some of the world's outstanding historical engineering and construction achievements. This year we pay tribute to the American Railroads. Not alone to their pioneering, that has resulted in the building and uniting of our nation, but also to their present day outstanding performance in moving the vast tonnage of war matériel and the unprecedented number of troops and passengers across the length and breadth of our great country. Mr. Rockwell Kent of Ausable Forks, New York, whose work is widely known, was commissioned this year to illustrate, for us, an episode of the early days of railroading."
The card featuring the present work was accompanied by the following statement: "It has been our custom for the past years to portray, on our Greeting Cards, some of the world's outstanding historical engineering and construction achievements. This year we pay tribute to the American Railroads. Not alone to their pioneering, that has resulted in the building and uniting of our nation, but also to their present day outstanding performance in moving the vast tonnage of war matériel and the unprecedented number of troops and passengers across the length and breadth of our great country. Mr. Rockwell Kent of Ausable Forks, New York, whose work is widely known, was commissioned this year to illustrate, for us, an episode of the early days of railroading."