Some inkling came over me as November 2020 crowded in
with outdoor work to button up before the snow started to fly —
so it was no surprise I went hunting room to room and library
to library in our old farmhouse for my first edition Modern Library
copy of Rockwell Kent's Wilderness. It had been lived in
(Fox Island, Alaska) and written during the rise of the
Spanish Influenza of 1919 and here we are 100 years later
as I go back in time, again, with Rockwell Kent and his nine year old son Rockwell
and their land and boat journey into the wilds of Alaska. Typically Kent
at the helm, with words and his poignant woodslore illustrations,
I was in his hands. Modern Library crafted with him
the ideal book culture. To first enhance my reading
I went back to Rockwellkentian and its "few words and many
pictures" showcasing a bibliography and list of prints compiled
by Carl Zigrosser and Kent's brief commentary, always with
his quill point edge. This brings us up to Kent as of 1933.
He'll be active and thriving almost forty more years.
In 1980 Sweetheart and I took our own voyage on a mailboat
to Monhegan island where Rockwell Kent as a young man built
a masterful house for his mother (later owned by the Wyeth family)
and two houses for himself. This would be in 1905 when he was twenty five
years old and the rocky island life would hold him for the next five years
of construction work and continuing at his painting. After Monhegan,
Kent lived for long periods of time in Minnesota (1912-13),
Newfoundland (1914-15), Alaska (1918-19), Vermont (where he
wrote Wilderness, Arlington to be exact 1919-25),
Tierra del Fuego (1922-23) Ireland (1926) and
Greenland (1929, 1931-32, 1934-35). We can follow
Kent everywhere through his paintings and the many
books he wrote from these sojourns.
My personal copy of Kent's Rockwellkentian is signed
by Kent — the smallest signature I believe I
have ever seen.
[ BA ]
