Almy Pond, Newport

While John Frederick Kensett painted numerous views of the picturesque coast on Newport, Rhode Island, a popular tourist haunt, Almy Pond, Newport presents the region as a peaceful agricultural setting. The scene looks south along the shore of the peninsula, over the end of Almy Pond toward Spouting Rock, site of a tidal water spout. In the far distance, across the bay, the Narragansett shore is barely visible. The flat, expansive landscape is complemented by a brilliantly clear sky that graduates from a rich blue at the top of the image, reflected in the pond and distant sea, to a milky opalescence at the horizon. In the middle distance, a farmer, three children, and a straggling black dog make their way toward grazing cows, drawing the viewer's gaze toward the distance and providing both a touch of animation and a subtle vertical contrast to the landscape. The clear morning light unites the components of this scene of country life. Almy Pond, Newport suggests a retreat into rural values in reaction to the ravages of national conflict and a reaffirmation of the existence of a beneficent Creator manifest in nature. The work exemplifies Kensett's ability to embed such broad themes in a specific, localized, "home" landscape.

Kensett first visited Newport in 1854, and it soon became one of his favorite subjects. The region's flat terrain of marshes, beaches, and rocky outcroppings encouraged the artist to abandon his earlier compositional mode, which used framing elements and a high vantage point to stress deep spatial recession, in favor of a simpler, more open format that suggests infinite expansion beyond the left and right edges of the canvas. This, along with the use of subtle brushwork to delineate exact detail of the specific topography and clear, pervasive, crystalline or glowing light, relate Kensett's coastal scenes to the movement dubbed "luminism" by modern scholars of American art. Another example of a "luminist" work includes Sanford Gifford's Morning in the Hudson, Haverstraw Bay (TF 1993.11), also in the Terra Foundation's collection.

Executor’s Sale: The Collection of Over Five Hundred Paintings and Studies by the Late John F. Kensett…, National Academy of Design, New York, New York, March 24–29, 1873. [exh. cat.]

Masterworks in American Art from the Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, April 27–September 12, 1985.

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

Visions of a Nation: Exploring Identity Through American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, August 10, 1996–January 12, 1997.

Selected Works from the Collections: Two Hundred Years of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–August 27, 1997.

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 1998.

Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900 (Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

Permanent collection installation, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 9–February 11, 2001.

D'une colonie à une collection: le Musée d'Art Américain Giverny fête ses dix ans (From a Colony to a Collection: Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of the Musée d'Art Américain Giverny), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, March 30–June 16, 2002.

The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940 (Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains, 1840–1940), Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 15–May 25, 2003; Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 8–August 17, 2003. [exh. cat.]

Expanded Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 15, 2005–May 2014.

Peindre L'Amérique les Artistes du Nouveau Monde (1830-1900), Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne, Switzerland (organizer). Venue: Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne, Switzerland, June 27–October 26, 2014. [exh. cat.]

Galleries of American Art with loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, January 2015–June 2016.

Continental Shift: Nineteenth Century American and Australian Landscape Painting, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Art Gallery of Western Australia, July 30, 2016–February 5, 2017. [exh. cat.]

Not as the Songs of other Lands: 19th century Australian and American Landscape Painting, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Ian Potter Museum of Art, March 14–June 11, 2017.

Executor’s Sale: The Collection of Over Five Hundred Paintings and Studies by the Late John F. Kensett… (exh. cat, National Academy of Design, New York, New York). New York, New York: National Academy of Design, 1873. Possibly text p. 33 (cat. no. 559).

“Picture and Book Sales: The Kensett Art Sale.” The New-York Tribune, March 29, 1873, p. 7. Text p. 7.

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-21, p. 130 (color).

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 1998. Ill. (black & white).

Little, Carl. Paintings of New England. Camden, Maine: Down East Books, 1996. Ill. p. 46 (color).

Almy Pond, Newport, John Frederick Kensett. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 1998. Ill. (black & white).

Cartwright, Derrick R. Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 27 (checklist); ill. p. 29 (color).

Cartwright, Derrick R. Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 27 (checklist); ill. p. 29 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 64; ill. p. 64 (black & white).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 64; ill. p. 64 (black & white).

Hauptman, William. Peindre l’Amérique. Le artistes du Nouveau Monde 1830-1900 [Painting America, artists of the New World (1830–1900)]. trans. Jeanne Bouniort. (exh. cat., Fondation de l’Hermitage, Lausanne, Switzerland). Lausanne: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 2014. Cat. 9, ill. p. 41 (color); Text pp. 40, 41, 178 (checklist).

Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text p. 60; ill. p. 60 (color).