Rockwell Kent at ODY
Ongoing to December 15th are two exhibits on Rockwell Kent, including an exhibit in the Frank & Anne Piskor Reading Room here in ODY. Many people are introduced to Rockwell Kent through his illustrations in the celebrated 1930 Random House edition of Moby Dick. After that, Rockwell Kent’s work and style is simply there, a part of a life sometimes sought, sometimes serendipitous, always noticed and never forgotten. It’s the simplicity and ingenuity that is so gripping in Kent’s work, a striving that Fridolf Johnson described in Rockwell Kent an Anthology of His Work as “…an almost uncontrollable urge to accomplish things, to succeed in everything, to see out and overcome obstacles.” Of his own work Rockwell Kent wrote in a small pamphlet titled How I Make A Woodcut (on display in ODY’s foyer):
Good craftsmanship is but a means toward that clear, unbefuddled eloquence which is not art but part of it. Yet in wood block prints the inescapably definite nature of every step of the technique, from the cutting of the blocks to the printing of them, makes the values of their craftsmanship inseparable from their art. They are a proper medium for the expression of clear uncompromising thought. Love them for that.
Come in a see the unbefuddled eloquence of Rockwell Kent these cold days now upon us.
