John Frederick Kensett

American, 1816 - 1872

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American artist (1816-1872)

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A pink-toned sandy beach meets a placid body of pale blue water under a hazy sky in this horizontal landscape painting. To our left, the beach curves like a letter C to end in the near distance with a terracotta-orange rocky outcropping and a boulder, which comes halfway across the composition. Muted green trees grow atop the outcropping, and the left half is blanketed in moss or grass. A white rowboat has been pulled into the sand about halfway along the beach. One person sits or crouches inside, and a red cloth or net hangs over the side closer to us. A person wearing a straw hat, white, long-sleeved shirt, and brown pants carries a basket over one arm as they walk away from us, not far from the rowboat. The water is very light blue where it laps gently at the shore but is washed by diffuse sunlight to parchment white in the distance. The horizon, which comes a third of the way up the canvas, nearly blends into the milky white bank of clouds above. A few sailboats are near the horizon on the right half of the painting, and a few small patches of blue sky show through the clouds in the upper right corner.
John Frederick Kensett, Beach at Beverly, c. 1869/1872, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1978.6.5

Beach at Beverly

John Frederick Kensett · c. 1869/1872 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.6.5

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Autumn Afternoon on Lake George

John Frederick Kensett · 1864 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.136.116

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Autograph Etchings by American Artists

Peter C. Duchochois, W. A. Townsend & Company, John Whetten Ehninger, Asher Brown Durand, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, John Frederick Kensett, Felix Octavius Carr Darley, John William Casilear, Eastman Johnson, Sanford Robinson Gifford, George Cochran Lambdin, George Henry Boughton, William Parsons Winchester Dana, Louis Rémy Mignot · 1859 · bound volume with twelve cliché-verre on albumen paper after various artists ·  Accession ID  2018.44.73

John Frederick Kensett, View on the Genesee near Mount Morris, 1857, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.136.118

View on the Genesee near Mount Morris

John Frederick Kensett · 1857 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.136.118

We look across a dark, aquamarine-blue body of water at a bulky, stony outcropping to our right in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition, and the sky above is pale blue, lightening to almost white along the horizon. Close to us, gentle waves break over rocks and boulders along the beach. The face of the rocky outcropping to our right rises vertically from the water and is tan and caramel brown, with some dark green vegetation growing in its crevasses. At its foot, down by the water, a lone fisherman with a pole stands on a rock casting his line. He wears a red shirt and brown pants, and is tiny in scale next to the rock formation. Farther in the distance, to our left along the horizon, a spring-green spit of land extends into the water. White boats with full sails are visible in the distance. One boat is silhouetted against a far, sunbathed shore.
John Frederick Kensett, Beacon Rock, Newport Harbor, 1857, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1953.1.1

Beacon Rock, Newport Harbor

John Frederick Kensett · 1857 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1953.1.1

John Frederick Kensett, Landing at Sabbath Day Point, c. 1853, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Sigourney Thayer, 1968.7.1

Landing at Sabbath Day Point

John Frederick Kensett · c. 1853 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1968.7.1

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Sketch of Mount Washington

John Frederick Kensett · 1851 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.136.113

John Frederick Kensett, Trees by a Rail Fence, early 1850s, graphite on wove paper, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David Cleveland, 1987.74.1

Trees by a Rail Fence

John Frederick Kensett · early 1850s · graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1987.74.1

John Frederick Kensett, Building by a Dam, 1850-1860, graphite over watercolor on wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase), 2015.19.559

Building by a Dam

John Frederick Kensett · 1850-1860 · graphite over watercolor on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.559

Bibliography

1957

  • Johnson, Ellen. "Kensett Revisited." The Art Quarterly 20 (Spring 1957): 71-92.

1968

  • Howat, John. John Frederick Kensett, 1816-1872. Exh. cat. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Cummer Gallery of Art, Jacksonville. New York, 1968.

1978

  • Driscoll, John Paul. John F. Kensett Drawings. Exh. cat. Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, State College; Babcock Galleries, New York. State College, 1978.

1981

  • Sullivan, Mark White. "John F. Kensett, American Landscape Painter." Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1981.

1985

  • Driscoll, John Paul, and John Mowat. John Frederick Kensett: An American Master. Exh. cat. Worcester Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum, New York. Worcester and New York, 1985.

1996

  • Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 387-388.