Near Newport, Rhode Island

Near Newport, Rhode Island is one of many paintings in which John Frederick Kensett portrayed a favorite coastline setting in a reductive composition of beach, rocks, ocean, and sky. Leaden clouds hang over a dramatic sea; its crashing waves seem all the more formidable in relation to the diminutive figures of a man and a dog on the beach. The man, wearing an artist’s broad-brimmed hat and smock and carrying what appears to be a sketchbook under his arm, seems a stand-in for the artist, whose initials appear just below him. The forbidding cliff, delineated with Kensett’s characteristic geologic specificity, bars the man’s way as it terminates the vista. The wreckage of a boat tossed in the surf at the right sounds a warning to the ships on the distant horizon; its counterpart, a dinghy drawn well up on the beach at the far left, is draped by a slip of brilliant red fabric like an impotent signal of danger. Painted in the year of the artist’s untimely death from pneumonia contracted after his failed attempt to rescue a drowning friend, Near Newport, Rhode Island seems a prophetic vision of the compelling yet perilous appeal of the sea.

With its high rocks anchoring the horizontal span of beach, water, and sky, Near Newport, Rhode Island is closely related to several other Newport beach scenes by Kensett. The artist varied these paintings by presenting the Newport shore under diverse light and atmospheric conditions, but typically in a mood of quiet serenity, as seen in the Terra Foundation’s Almy Pond, Newport (TF 1992.42), for example. In Near Newport, Rhode Island, the turbulent sea and sky and hint of impending menace mark an unexpected new mood in Kensett’s landscape imagery.

Kensett began to specialize in scenes of coast and shore in the mid-1850s, after he had established himself as a painter of New England landscapes. After his first visit to Newport, in 1854, he returned almost annually, and he painted at least one view of the peninsula each year for the remainder of his career. In the nineteenth century, Newport was one of the East Coast’s most popular summertime resort destinations. Like the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Lake George, New York, other favorite subjects for the artist, Newport supported a vigorous tourist industry that offered Kensett and his contemporaries a ready market for their recognizable images of familiar, picturesque spots. This may explain why the prolific Kensett returned repeatedly to certain compositional formulas.

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.]

Riviéres 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.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 10–July 1, 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.

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003.

American Classics from the Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 14–June 15, 2003.

America! Storie di pittura dal nuovo mondo, Linea d'ombra, Treviso, Italy (organizer). Venue: Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, Italy, November 24, 2007–May 4, 2008. [exh. cat.]

Manifest Destiny, Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois and Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Loyola University Museum of Art, May 17–August 10, 2008. [exh. cat.]

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.

The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context (L’atelier de la Nature, 1860-1910. Invitation à la Terra Collection). Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny (organizers). Venue: Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, France, September 12, 2020–January 3, 2021. [exh. cat. in French]

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 pp. 11 (cat. no. 53, as Near Newport, R. I.), 14 (cat. no. 117, as Near Newport, R. I.), 16 (cat. no. 169, as Near Newport, R. I.), 21 (cat. no. 288, as Under the Bluffs, Newport), or 22 (cat no. 292, as Near Newport).

“Picture and Book Sales: The Kensett Art Sale.” The New-York Tribune, March 25, or 27, 1873, p. 5. Text p. 5 (as Near Newport, R. I., Under the Bluffs, Newport, or Near Newport).

Sotheby's New York, New York (Sale 7230, December 3, 1998): lot 146. Ill. p. 107 (color).

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 pp. 19, 27 (checklist); fig. 12, p. 19 (black & white).

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 pp. 19, 27 (checklist); fig. 12, p. 19 (black & white).

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 pp. 74, 199; ill. pp. 75 (color), 199 (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 pp. 74, 199; ill. pp. 75 (color), 199 (black & white).

Goldin, Marco ed. America! Storie di pittura dal Nuovo Mondo. (exh. cat., Brescia, Museo di Santa Giulia). Treviso, Italy: Linea d'ombra Libri, 2007.  Text p. 480 (checklist); ill. cat. no. 47, pp. 123 (color), 480 (black & white as Dintorni di Newport, Rhode Island).

Brownlee, Peter John.  Manifest Destiny / Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. (exh. cat., Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art and Loyola University Museum of Art, 2008.  Text p. 36 (checklist).Bourguignon, Katherine and Valerie Reis. The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context. (exh. cat, Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny). Paris, France: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2020.  Pl. 5, p. 62 (color).