Joseph James Ryan

American

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A tall, rocky, pyramid-shaped mountain rising sharply from flat field of snow and silhouetted against bands of steel-gray clouds nearly fills this horizontal landscape painting. Narrow bands of snow rest in the crevices of the dark brown mountain, especially on the cliff-like face to our right. A much lower, flat-topped butte in the distance to our right has cobalt-blue shadows. Near the foot of the mountain and at the bottom center of the composition, one person, tiny in scale, rides in a sled pulled by several dogs while another person pushes at the back. The horizon comes less than a quarter of the way up the composition and the sky above and around the mountain is a blanket of gray clouds shaded indigo blue on their undersides. The artist signed the work with dark paint against the white snow in the lower right corner: “Rockwell Kent.”
Rockwell Kent, Citadel, 1932-1933, oil on canvas mounted on plywood, Gift of Deborah and Edward Shein, 2013.155.1

Citadel

Rockwell Kent · 1932-1933 · oil on canvas mounted on plywood ·  Accession ID  2013.155.1