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Dimensions: 34 by 44 1/2 in. (86.4 by 113 cm)
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Provenance: The artist
Macbeth Galleries, New York
Mr. James J. Ryan, Virginia, 1950
By descent in the family
Private Collection, New England
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Exhibited: Washington, D.C., Gallery of Modern Masters, Greenland Paintings and Prints: Rockwell Kent, 1937, no. 17
Dayton, Ohio, Dayton Art Institute, Paintings, Lithographs, Wood Cuts by Rockwell Kent, 1940
Houston, Texas, Meinhard-Taylor Galleries, Paintings, Lithographs, Wood Cuts by Rockwell Kent, 1940, no. 6
New York, Wildenstein Galleries; Los Angeles, California, Stendahl Art Galleries; Stockton, California, The Haggin Museum; Beloit, Wisconsin, Theodore Lyman Wright Art Hall, Beloit College; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Institute; Boston, Massachusetts, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Know and Defend America, 1942-43, no. 19
Moscow, USSR, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; Leningrad, USSR, State Hermitage Museum; Kiev, USSR, Kiev Museum of Western and Eastern Art; Odessa, USSR, Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art; Riga, USSR, State Museum of Fine Arts, Rockwell Kent: Paintings and Graphics, 1957-58, no. 38
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Literature: Rockwell Kent, Rockwell Kent, New York, 1945, illustrated
Rockwell Kent, It's Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent, New York, 1955, illustrated in color opposite p. 556, also illustrated in color on the dustjacket
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Notes: According to Richard V. West, "Blue Day, Greenland ranks as one of the most monumental and successful of Rockwell Kent's Greenland landscapes. It was begun in 1935, probably during the artist's third trip to Greenland, and was completed after his return to the United States. In its precise simplicity and reduction of forms, Blue Day stands as an important example of Kent's response to the challenge of modernism. Like his contemporaries Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe, Kent is able here to create a 'modern' style while retaining the integrity of the subject. Compositionally, the painting is divided into three horizontal bands that can be read almost as an abstract field painting, while at the same time evoking a sense of isolation and apartness through the stark and laconic handling of the distant hills."
Scott R. Ferris writes, "An ardent celebrant of Life, Rockwell Kent traversed the world, frequently leaving his footprints in its harsh polar regions. His deep affection for the distant latitudes has its roots in the Nordic tale, The Saga of Burnt Njal, a prophetic tome brought to his attention by his mentor Abbott Thayer. Kent recounts, in his exhaustive autobiography It's Me O Lord, that Burnt Njal 'opened the gate upon that highway to the North which led at last to Greenland and Alaska' (Kent, p. 110). The artist's early, prolonged stays in the remote communities of Monhegan Island, Maine and Brigus, Newfoundland further encouraged him to venture north, as well as to Tierra del Fuego in the Antarctic. Kent's sojourns in the wilderness-'the only abiding place on earth of liberty' (Kent, Salamina, quoted in Scott R. Ferris, In the Presence of Light, 2003, p. xx)-were 'the flight to freedom of a man who detests the petty quarrels and bitterness of the crowded world' (Alaska Drawings by Rockwell Kent, New York, M. Knoedler & Co., 1919).
"Rockwell Kent's tales of his first trip to Greenland (1929) are told in his book, N by E. The artist's graceless but newsworthy shipwreck upon the shores of Karajak Fjord initiated his historic three voyages to that largest of islands. His subsequent trips in 1931-32 and 1934-35 are retold in Salamina and Greenland Journal.
"Many of the paintings that Kent created during his extended visits to Greenland typify the apogee of his artistic achievements. Distinguished art critic Royal Cortissoz wrote that Kent's art 'speaks of something like joy in life, a joy in the might and majesty of nature, to be delighted in even when she is nominally at her bleakest' (New York Herald Tribune, February 8, 1942)."
Mr. Ferris continues, "In September 1950, Robert McIntyre of Macbeth Gallery wrote to Rockwell Kent to inform him of a client's interest in purchasing paintings by the artist. Inspired by a shared interest in Progressive politics, Jim ('J.J.') Ryan, grandson of renowned financier Thomas Fortune Ryan, became the leading collector of Kent's paintings. Before the end of September, he had purchased three of Kent's canvases, one Irish and two Alaskan landscapes. In November, Ryan purchased another five paintings, including Citadel, Gray Day, and its companion composition, Blue Day. Not only is Blue Day one of the paintings Ryan selected from Kent's oeuvre, this painting was chosen to appear on the cover of his autobiography It's Me O Lord. Ryan would acquire nearly 30 oils in all, many of which, including Blue Day, are representative of Kent's finest works.
"Blue Day, along with 54 other oils and approximately 163 graphic works, was exhibited in five cities in the USSR from December 1957 through November 1958. The overwhelmingly positive response to Kent's work was a leading factor in his decision to bequeath his personal collection to the Soviet people. Had J.J. Ryan not purchased Blue Day prior to the exhibition, there is reason to believe that it would have become one of the paintings that Kent gave to the Soviet Union in 1960."
This painting will be included in Scott Ferris' forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work. We are grateful to Mr. Ferris for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
This painting will be included in the catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Richard V. West.
