Rockwell Kent

Macbeth Galleries, New York
Mr. Joseph James Ryan, Virginia, 1950
Private collection (by descent)
Private collection, New England (sold: Sotheby's, New York, December 3, 2003, lot 68, illustrated)
Private collection (acquired at the above sale)

Washington, D.C., Gallery of Modern Masters, Greenland Paintings and Prints: Rockwell Kent, 1937, no. 17
Dayton, Ohio, Dayton Art Institute, Paintings, Lithographs, Wood Cuts by Rockwell Kent, 1940
Houston, Texas, Meinhard-Taylor Galleries, Paintings Lithographs, Wood Cuts by Rockwell Kent, 1940, no. 6
New York, Wildenstein Galleries; Los Angeles, California, Stendahl Art Galleries; Stockton, California, The Haggin Museum; Beloit, Wisconsin, Theodore-Lyman Wright Art Hall, Beloit College; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Institute; Boston, Massachusetts, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Know and Defend America, 1942-1943, no. 19
Moscow, USSR, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; Leningrad, USSR, State Hermitage Museum; Kiev, USSR, Kiev Museum of Western and Eastern Art; Odessa, USSR, Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art, Riga, USSR, State Museum of Fine Arts, Rockwell Kent: Paintings and Graphics, 1957-1958, no. 38
Portland, Maine, Portland Museum of Art, Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and the Modern, 2005, illustrated
Salem, Massachusetts, Peabody Essex Museum, To the Ends of the Earth: Painting the Polar Landscape, 2009, illustrated
Canton, New York, The Richard F. Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University, The Once Most Popular Artist, 2012

Rockwell Kent, Rockwell Kent, New York, 1945, illustrated
Rockwell Kent, It's Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent, New York, 1955, illustrated in color opposite p. 556; also illustrated in color on the dustjacket 

This work is in very good condition. The canvas has been mounted onto panel by the artist. There are two vertical ridges beneath the mountains, at center and center left, that are inherent in the original canvas. Under UV: there are retouches along the upper edges. There are some scattered dots and thin diagonal lines of inpainting in the sky and snow.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In The Paintings of Rockwell Kent: An Annotated Checklist, currently in preparation, Richard V. West writes: "Blue Day, Greenland, and its 'pendant', Gray Day, Greenland, mark not only the pinnacle of [Rockwell] Kent's experiences in Greenland, but secure his reputation as one of the major American artists of the twentieth century, alongside his contemporaries Edward Hopper and George Bellows. ...In Blue Day, Greenland, Kent combines his life-long love affair with nature and his architectural sensibilities as a painter to create a work that is at once a transcendental and modernist masterpiece" (© 2017 Richard V. West).