Feb 16, 2023 - Sale 2626

Sale 2626 - Lot 23

Price Realized: $ 4,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500

ROCKWELL KENT (1882-1971)


Prometheus Unchained.
Lithograph. 357x290 mm; 14x11 3/8 inches, full margins. Small edition; there was no published edition. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. Printed by George Miller, New York. 1938.

A superb impression of this very scarce lithograph. We have found only 4 other impressions at auction in the past 30 years. Burne-Jones cites only 8 impressions in public collections. Burne-Jones 119.

Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York and attended the Columbia University School of Architecture and studied painting from well known American artists such as Robert Henri. After moving to Maine, Kent took up wood engraving and gained a reputation as a prolific graphic artist in the 1920s. An intrepid traveller, Kent went on a number of trips to the most remote parts of the world, which heavily inspired his artwork. In 1937 he was commissioned by the Federal Public Works Administration to create two murals for the New Post Office in Washington DC, today the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building.