Had I not been on my way north towards home from a business and social trip to Bethany Beach, Delaware early this morning, the middle of Philadelphia on a scorchingly hot Saturday would not have been on my agenda. But one of the art museum's minor exhibitions until later this month is a rare assemblage of the graphic works of Rockwell Kent, a favorite artist of mine, and a fascinating character whose paintings, lithographs, illustrations, writings, very left wing politics, and well chronicled voyages have given him a unique place in the history of 20th century America. So I could hardly not go. And despite the blazing 100 degree heat shimmering off the acres of pavement I walked to get there and that multi-tiered set of stone steps leading up to the museum, once inside in the air conditioned galleries and eventually cooled down, I was glad I went. Kent is better known for his landscape paintings, but I'm most attracted to his often more politically charged work that is featured in this show. His stylized figures are so much a product of the same influences that produced early modernist architecture, and the research I did on that period while developing the Glasgow cabinetry and furniture series is still fresh in my mind. It was worth the trouble and the unpleasant heat to see it.
I was also glad not to be standing in line sweating and waiting to see the headline exhibition of Cezanne, Gauguin and Matisse that is the big event there until September 3. That will have to wait for a day with less museum traffic, and I hope at least marginally more bearable weather.
view of the city from under the museum portico.