Rockwell Kent had three remarkable talents — art, writing and adventuring. To me and many people, he’s most famous for illustrating a 1930 version of Moby Dick in stunning Art Deco images.
That book is arguably the best known example of Art Deco design in literature. But I recently learned there’s much more to Rockwell Kent. I was browsing through the travel section of a used bookshop when I came across a copy of N by E, I guess we say N by E but it means North by East as this is a book about sailing.
N by E is written and illustrated by Kent. The black and white wood block illustrations are true examples of the Art Deco style, full of lines and angles.
I say sailing but N by E is actually a shipwreck story of the non-fiction kind. Kent and two others sailed from New York to Greenland in a small 33-foot cutter where they were shipwrecked when a storm rose from nowhere while they were anchored close to the shore. Being shipwrecked was just the start of their adventures and I won’t spoil the book.
Now how many authors can say they have been shipwrecked? Not many. The book gave me a new appreciation for Rockwell Kent. He wasn’t some fancy New York artist swanning around his New York studio. He was very much a man of action and the outdoors. He describes the voyage, the rugged Greenland coastline and the native Greenlanders with panache in N by E.
And yet, N by E isn’t Kent’s only book of adventure.
He wrote and illustrated a book called Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska — a memoir about the fall and winter of 1918 and 1919 when he painted and explored Fox Island in Resurrection Bay, Alaska.
He wrote and illustrated another book called Voyaging Southward from the Strait of Magellan — also a memoir about his travels in 1922 and 1923 around Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America.
And then there’s Salamina — a third memoir, this time about his first Arctic winter in 1931 and 1932 when he again painted and explored while living in Greenland.
Kent was a man who went to the farthest corners of the world, and painted and wrote, and looked around. In his mid-40s he moved to an Adirondack farmstead that he called Asgaard where he lived and painted until his death. A believer in the power of nature in the tradition of Thoreau and Emerson, Kent found inspiration in the austerity and stark beauty of wilderness.
Published in 1930 by the Lakeside Press, the three-volume limited edition (1,000 copies) of Moby Dick is a landmark in book illustration. It sold out almost immediately. The haunting black-and-white pen and brush and ink drawings are very special.
The limited editions sell for between $3,000 and $12,000. Even first editions of the subsequent Random House trade edition can sell for up to $3,000 if they have a dust jacket in fine condition.
Because he got around a bit and saw the world from the perspective of other folks, Kent was often critical of American foreign policy. But he remained America’s premier artist of the sea throughout the 1940s. Although he came from a relatively well-off background, Kent wasn’t your bog standard American conservative, He joined the Socialist Party of America in 1904 and was a strong supporter of unions throughout his life.
Kent’s political activism came to the fore in the 1930s, when he campaigned for the Spanish Republic and against fascism. In the Cold War era, Kent argued for nuclear disarmament and wanted the U.S. to have a strong relationship with the Soviet Union. This was not the direction where America was heading and Kent, like so many prominent intellectuals and creative types became a target of the McCarthy witch hunts. His stance on politics led to the suspension of his passport in 1950. And in 1951 Kent successfully defended his record in court after he had been accused of being a communist.
Although he travelled and argued and wrote, it’s his art that Kent will always be best remembered for It’s possible to find a raft of books with illustrations by Rockwell Kent, including Candide by Voltaire, Beowulf, Leaves of Grass, Faust, The Decameron, the works of Shakespeare and The Canterbury Tales. He also illustrated Thornton Wilder’s novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
He left a remarkable legacy.
