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John Frederick Kensett

The paintings of J.F. Kensett are among the finest and most sought- after work produced by the second generation of Hudson River School artists. With an engraver's eye for sharp detail and a sensitivity to atmospheric variation, Kensett created powerful portraits of rocks, water and sky, reflecting infinite depth, power and peace. He was considered a luminist painter, one of a group that was especially interested in weather effects. Stanford Gifford, a follower of Kensett, referred to luminism as "air-painting."

Kensett was more a follower of Asher B. Durand than he was of Thomas Cole. He attempted to concentrate on compositions that were realistic and detailed, rather than contrived and dramatic. His work falls into four major categories: shorelines; mountain and water views from above; mountain and lake scenes from a lower point of view; and woodland interiors.

In 1840, Kensett went to Europe with John W. Casilear, Thomas Rossiter and Asher B. Durand. He stayed for seven years, helping to support himself by doing engraving's for American companies. When he returned to America in 1847, he had no trouble selling his work. His timing was good: in 1846 he had sent several Italian landscapes home, two of which were purchased by the American Art-Union.

His studio became a magnet for the art world. Travelers delighted in identifying precise locations in the Catskills or Newport or New England in the oil sketches and drawings that covered his walls.

Memberships:
National Academy of Design

Public Collections:
Art Institute of Chicago
Brooklyn Museum
Cummer Gallery of Art, Jacksonville, Florida
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
New York Historical Society, New York City

Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton

John F. Kensett apprenticed with the engraver Peter Maverick around 1829 and found himself a job at Daggett and Ely, engravers in New Haven for the next six years. He began his career as a banknote engraver until 1838 when he was encouraged to pursuit the arts. Kensett spent 7 years in Europe studying painting. He returned in 1847 and by the mid '50shad become a leading painter in the Hudson River School. The 1860s were the height of Kensett's career as a Luminist working with atmospheric landscapes. At the age of 56, Kensett died trying to save a drowning woman on an ocean inlet. More than 600 works were left in his studio at the time of death. Many powerful portraits of rocks that bear infinite weight, depth and peace were found. Kensett's work can be divided into four major categories; shorelines, mountains and water from above viewpoint, mountain lake scenes from lower viewpoint and woodland interiors. Kensett held full membership at the National Academy of Design in 1849. In 1870 he became a founder and later trustee of the Metropolitan Museum.

Biography courtesy of The Caldwell Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/caldwell

John Frederick Kensett was one of the most important artists of the Hudson River School, known for his poetic depictions of the American countryside. Born in Connecticut, Kensett trained under his father Thomas, an engraver, and began working in print shops in New Haven and New York in the 1830s. His career took flight after a seven-year sojourn in Europe, where he studied painting alongside John William Casilear and Asher B. Durand. Back in New York, Kensett turned his focus to American scenery, making sketching tours across the country. In 1849, the same year he was elected a full member of the National Academy of Design, he traveled with Casilear and Durand to the Catskill Mountains, where the trio spent four months working in the woodland surrounding Thomas Cole's former home. The expedition proved emblematic: Cole had died the year before, leaving a void at the Hudson River School that Kensett and Durand would soon fill.

Painting intimate landscapes that celebrated the American wilderness, Kensett came to lead the naturalistic (as opposed to Romantic) vein of the Hudson River School. He viewed nature as God's own work of art and attempted to portray the wonder of divine creation in every rock and tree, capturing their texture and form through careful observation and inspired rendering. Initially celebrated for his woodland interiors and panoramic landscapes, Kensett turned to a limited register of sea and sky in the final decade of his life. Drawn from the landscapes of Lake George, Newport, and Contentment Island, his late work brought Luminism to its zenith, heralding a new language of silence and repose. The abstracting impulse visible in Kensett's late work articulates the universality of natural form through a metaphysical transcendence of the specific scene; the emphasis is on pictorial shape rather than physical weight, silhouette instead of volume -stripping landscape to its essential impression.

Remarkable for his intelligent mind and generous temperament, Kensett was -both personally and professionally -one of the most influential artists of the Hudson River School. He served on the Art Commission of the U.S. Capitol Building and was a founder of the Artists Fund Society and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met held a special retrospective on the artist in 1986; today his work is collected by every major museum, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the White House.

Biography courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, www.antiquesandfineart.com/questroyal

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