Rockwell Kent

Charles Wilson, Wilson Mechanical Corporation (acquired directly from the artist)

Private Collection

Thence by descent to the present owner

Rockwell Kent engaged in a variety of professional endeavors throughout his lifetime; trained as an architect and mentored as a painter by the likes of William Merritt Chase and Abbott Handerson Thayer, his artistic skill and technical precision as a draftsman were long admired before he ventured into illustration. Kent first experimented with illustration in 1914 while working for the architecture firm of Ewing & Chappell in New York. Life and Harper's Weekly subsequently showcased his small ink drawings in their publications, allowing Kent to hone his craft and mass distribute his animated designs. Throughout the 1920s and early '30s, Kent's illustrations for bookplates, book jackets, and commissioned advertisements became increasingly well known to the public. Among the artist's most popular contributions to American culture are his illustrations for Moby Dick, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, and The Canterbury Tales.

Like many of his modernist contemporaries, Kent was enamored with Greek mythology and sought inspiration from classical figures and mythic narratives alike. "He depicted his idealized subjects as though they were athletes immortalized by Greek or Renaissance masters," explains author Jake Milgram Wien (as quoted in Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and the Modern, New York, 2005, p. 118). Greek gods and goddesses in particular became principle characters in his book illustrations and advertisements. Manhattan Prometheus, for example, is a cover drawing that Kent completed in 1931 for a telephone directory. Showcasing the Greek god of fire as its focal point, this advertisement associates the strength and valor of Prometheus with the values of the New York Telephone Company. This dedication to allegorizing his subjects to symbolize the thing or person related to the commission is a hallmark of Kent's illustration practice, and is plainly on display in The Vulcan.

Commissioned in 1940 by Charles Wilson of the Wilson Mechanical Instrument Corporation, The Vulcan features the god of fire and forge, who is notably the mythical inventor of metal working. A befitting image for a company devoted to the manufacture of hardness testers, the link between the Vulcan imagery and this particular patron is evident. In a letter dated 30 January 1941 in which Mr. Wilson thanked Rockwell Kent for The Vulcan, he reports that it was "enthusiastically received" and "hangs on many a wall in metallurgical laboratories and factory offices." This lot is accompanied by the correspondences between Wilson and Kent, as well as original proofs and ephemera pertaining to the commission.