Storm, Western Colorado

Artist John Frederick Kensett (American, 1816-1872)

Date1870

DimensionsFrame: 28 7/8 × 38 3/4 × 3 1/4 in. (73.3 × 98.4 × 8.3 cm)

MediumOil on canvas.

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

1945.13

Not on View

Label TextIn the summer of 1870, John Frederick Kensett traveled west to Colorado with fellow landscape artists Sanford Robinson Gifford (see his paintings in this gallery) and Worthington Whittredge. Kensett painted this dramatic view of the Rockies during that trip. His quick, sketchy brushstrokes and dabs of paint effectively capture the dynamic storm and the grandeur of the American West. As one critic wrote in 1867, “If we desired to carry abroad genuine memorials of native scenery—to keep alive its impression in a foreign land—we should select half a dozen of Kensett’s landscapes.”Published ReferencesCowdrey, M. B., "The Return of John F. Kensett," Portfolio, IV, Feb. 1945, repr. frontispiece (dated 1866).

Moure, N., "Five Eastern Artists Out West," American Art Journal, V, Nov. 1973, p. 17, fig. 2.

Sweeney, J., "The Artist-Explorers of the American West," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1975, pp. 293-96, illus. 17 (chap. 4).

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo 1979, pp. 67-8, pl. 42.

Kilbourne, F. W., "A White Mountain Artist of the Years Ago," Appalachia, Dec. 1947, repr.

Gunther, Charles F., "Nature and her Moods," The Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 8, no. 2, Summer 1965, pp. 41-42, repr. p. 41.

Levick, L. E., "Whitney's All-American Art," Palm Beach Life, vol. 61, no. 10, Nov. 1968, repr. p. 92.

Cowdrey, B., "Painter of the Pure Landscape," American Collector, vol. 14, Feb. 1945, p. 13, repr.

Truettner, William H., "Ideology and Image: Justifying Westward Expansion," in The West as America, Washington, 1991, p. 34, fig. 28. [not in exhib.].

Exhibition HistoryNew York, National Academy of Design, The Collection of Over Five Hundred Paintings and Studies by the Late John F. Kensett, 1873.

New York, Old Print Shop, John F. Kensett, N.A., Exhibition of American Landscapes, 1945.

Oberlin (OH), Allen Memorial Art Museum, American Artists Discover America, 1946, no. 29.

New York, American Federation of the Arts, John Frederick Kensett, 1816-1876, 1968, no. 43, repr.

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y. 1968.

Toledo Museum of Art, Heritage and Horizon: American Painting 1776-1976, 1976, no. 12, repr. (Buffalo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Detroit Institute of Arts; Cleveland Museum of Art).

Mansfield Art Center (OH), The American Landscape, 1981, no. 4 repr.

Worcester Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Frederick Kensett: an American Master, 1985-86, p. 135, pl. 36, (col.).

New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, American Paintings from the Toledo Museum of Art, 1986, repr. (col.).