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Film strip of black and white images

A Documentary Film: Rockwell Kent

Thursday, November 29, 2018
7:30 pm
Miami University Art Museum Auditorium

Painter, illustrator, and author. Socialist, activist, and adventurer. One can easily apply all of those descriptors to the great 20th-century artist Rockwell Kent and still neglect the full measure of his character and accomplishments. No biographical portrait of the soulful, New York-born iconoclast has ever matched the depth of his spirituality, versatility, and wanderlust—until now. Thirteen years in the making, this film examines the origins, development, and fruition of Kent’s art while tracing his globe-spanning journey through almost nine decades of vibrant living. From a childhood shaped by genteel poverty to an expansive working life in which creative, commercial, and political concerns intermingled and eclipsed his duties as a father, Kent is rendered here in the vast, varied geographic locations that fascinated him, in frank conversations with those who knew him intimately, and in the beauty of his paintings, prints, and writings. Observations by critics and scholars also inform this finely crafted profile of an American genius. View Kent’s work in the Douglass gallery.

Thirteen years in the making, this film examines the origins, development, and fruition of Kent’s art while tracing his globe-spanning journey through almost nine decades of vibrant living. From a childhood shaped by genteel poverty to an expansive working life in which creative, commercial, and political concerns intermingled and eclipsed his duties as a father, Kent is rendered here in the vast, varied geographic locations that fascinated him, in frank conversations with those who knew him intimately, and in the beauty of his paintings, prints, and writings. Observations by critics and scholars also inform this finely crafted profile of an American genius.

Event sponsored by Miami University Art Museum

Frederick Lewis
Frederick Lewis
School of Media Arts & Studies, Ohio University