Rockwell Kent is best known for his modern landscape paintings and his striking Art Deco illustrations for a 1930 edition of Moby Dick. Kent grew up in New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson River Valley. He studied mechanical drawing and woodworking at the Horace Mann School and enrolled in the School of Architecture at Columbia University. In the early 20th century, he turned his attention toward painting, attending William Merritt Chase's classes at Shinnecock and studying at the New York School of Art with Robert Henri. His classmates included George Bellows and Edward Hopper, and his mentor was Abbott Thayer with whom he painted in New Hampshire. Kent was an inveterate traveler, finding his subjects in Alaska, Newfoundland, Tierro del Fuego, Greenland, Ireland, and Monhegan, Maine, and he composed and illustrated travelogues. A highly respected artist by the 1930s, Kent exhibited widely and illustrated for books, magazines, and advertisements.
