SUNY symposium to honor Rockwell Kent
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Feb. 24—PLATTSBURGH — The Plattsburgh State Art Museum and the Center for Interdisciplinary and Area Studies invites the public to a mini symposium, "Celebrating the Spirit of Rockwell Kent," which will be held March 4-5 at the college.
"When I first came to SUNY Plattsburgh as a director of the Art Museum, I recognized immediately how impressive our Rockwell Kent Collection is specifically because of the important larger pieces we have but also the massive amount of personal material that we have from him," Tonya Cribb said.
"I feel like it's such a significant collection. It's sort of not very well known that we have this incredible collection. When I arrived my goal was we need to let people know that we have it here."
GREENLAND KENT
AuSable Forks most famous artist/writer/adventurer/political activist was born June 21, 1882 in Tarrytown and died March 13, 1971 in Plattsburgh.
He studied at the Horace Mann School, Art Students League, Shinnecock Hills Summer Art School, New York School of Art and Columbia University.
In 1927, Kent moved to the Adirondacks and purchased a farm he dubbed Asgaard, where he resided the rest of his life and created in his woodland studio.
Two years later, Kent sailed on a painting expedition to Greenland.
He recounted his adventures in his best-selling "N by E" published in 1930 by Brewer and Warren.
In Greenland, Kent met Danish Arctic explorers Peter Freuchen and Knud Rasmussen.
Greenland spoke to Kent, who spent two years (1931-32 and 1934-35) painting and writing in Illorsuit, a tiny fishing village above the Arctic Circle.
He built a little red house, and inside and outside he captured the remote wildness and its people, the Inuit, in photographs, paintings, words and and hand-tinted lanterns.
It was the jewel tones of the latter that beguiled photographer and now retired RIT professor Denis Defibaugh's imagination in a 2012 visit to the Rockwell Kent Collection and spurred him to conduct a comparative study, past and present, funded by the National Science Foundation.
Defibaugh's "North by Nuuk: Greenland after Rockwell Kent" is on exhibit through March 11 at the Burke Gallery, Myers Fine Arts Building.
"It just so happens in conjunction with Denis's show, this year 2022 marks the 140th year since Rockwell Kent's birth," Cribb said.
A Rockwell Kent Symposium was held Aug. 6, 1994 at the college.
"We were thinking about we need to do more of that to let people know this collection is here and also to let the public know that they are invited," Cribb said.
TWO LECTURES/MEET THE ARTIST
On Friday, March 4, tours will be held at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. at the Rockwell Kent Gallery, Feinberg Library.
"Pursuing beauty in bewilderment at its profusion: Reflections on Gender and Sexuality in Rockwell Kent's Greenland Materials" will be presented by Susan Vanek, a PhD candidate in socio-cultural anthropology at SUNY Binghamton University and Dr. Jette Rygaard, a professor emeritus at the University of Greenland, who accompanied Defibaugh in Greenland.
The lecture will be held from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Yokum, Room 200.
"Meet the Artist Denis Defibaugh and Jette Rygaard" will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Burke Gallery.
They were part of a team that received a grant from the National Science Foundation that proposed to follow Kent's path through Greenland documenting the changing people, history, and landscape.
During their time in Greenland, Defibaugh taught photographic workshops to children and youth in each of the study communities to teach photographic techniques and encourage youth to take their own pictures.
Combining visual, historical and anthropological methods, the research team worked with communities to gain an understanding of Kent's time in Greenland as well as changes in the life of each community from the 1930s until today.
Banners of the children's photographs from the workshops in Illorsuit, Uummannaq, Sisimiut and Nuuk will be mounted and Defibaugh and Rygaard will answer questions about their experience.
"I love Denis' show because it shows Rockwell Kent's impact on younger, new contemporary artists," Cribb said.
"That the work is still inspiring artists today, and that there are a lot of interesting connections that can be drawn from the past to the present."
"New light on the friendship between Rockwell Kent and Knud Rasmussen" will be presented by Erik Torm, project advisor, Uummannaq Polar Institute from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Yokum Room 200.
'CELBRATING ROCKWELL KENT'
"In the spirit of celebrating Rockwell Kent and having this lovely contemporary show, I felt like this was wonderful, and also that celebratory sense of starting to reconnect with the world after we have been so sequestered with COVID," Cribb said.
"We would make this celebration of Rockwell Kent's life, and we would do it on a smaller scale and hoping we can do it on a much larger sale in the future. Just to invite the public to let them know we have this incredible collection."
"Wine Down" at The Rockwell Kent Gallery will be held Friday, March 4, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Feinberg Library.
Patrons can wind down and celebrate Kent and his spirit of exploration inside the Rockwell Kent Gallery.
A selection of speakers across disciplines will offer short meditations on the theme of journey and exploration in their personal, intellectual, and professional lives, while also sharing selections from Kent's work.
Meet, mingle, and explore this lovely space and the work of this important artist.
ASGAARD TOUR
The Plattsburgh State Art Museum partnered with the SUNY Plattsburgh Center for Earth and Environmental Sciences and Asgaard Farm & Dairy, located at 74 Asgaard Way, AuSable Forks, to host a tour of the farm on Saturday, March 5 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Guests must register and provide their own transportation for this event.
Asgaard not only served as the inspiration for many of Kent's paintings, but was also a working dairy farm.
David Brunner and Rhonda Butler acquired the farm in 1988.
After working several years to restore the land and buildings, they put the farm back into production in 2003.
Asgaard Farm was placed on the State and National Register of Historic Places in 2020.
"We are an academic museum, so this sort of cross-disciplinary nature of Rockwell Kent's work is perfect for an academic museum, so we should celebrate that," Cribb said.
Email Robin Caudell:
Twitter:@RobinCaudell
