ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Rockwell Kent (1882-1971) was one of the most popular and influential artists to live in the Adirondacks; however, some of his political ideas conflicted with the artwork he created. Apart from his political art, he loved to show the rugged landscape of the Adirondacks. Kent had the opportunity to be a much more successful artist were it not for accusations of his being a communist, which Kent tried to compensate for by creating artwork with an aethetically and socially conservative bent.

The title Eternal Vigilance Is the Price of Liberty posits that if we have freedom, one consequence will be the need for its protection, which perhaps is in tension with freedom itself. This print was truly relevant to the time it was made, at the end of WWII, when many countries were pushing for liberty. Kent’s view stresses the irony of the idea of freedom and how it is not truly free.

In this lithograph, we can see a man shouting into the distance, and then pointing in the opposite direction, potentially warning people of danger. The figure of the man reflects the time the print was made and also Kent’s conservative aesthetic. The visible physical strength of the man emphasizes the social standards of masculinity of the time, and the his warning shows the power men had and that Kent believed in.
– Colin Wanat ’26

 

Rockwell Kent
Eternal Vigilance Is the Price of Liberty, 1945
Lithograph on paper
Special Collections
Owen D. Young Library
Rockwell Kent Collection, mss. 132

H

DS

“