Nationality American Known for Sculpture | Name Adaline Kent | |
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Full Name Adaline Dutton Kent Style Post-war California Modernism Artwork Dark Mountain, Figment, Young Woman, Figure Composition, Muse, Presence Alma mater Vassar College, San Francisco Art Institute, Academie de la Grande Chaumiere | ||
Adaline Dutton Kent (1900–1957) or Adaline Kent Howard was an American sculptor from California. She created abstract sculptures with forms inspired by the natural landscape.
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Biography
Kent was born on August 7, 1900 in Kentfield, California, one of seven children of women's rights activist Elizabeth Thacher Kent and U.S. congressman William Kent. Her grandfather, Albert Emmett Kent, had purchased an 800-acre farm in 1871, which later became the town of Kentfield. She began her education at Vassar College before returning to the Bay Area to study at the California School of Fine Arts. She studied in Paris with Antoine Bourdelle at the Grande Chaumiere. She married Robert Boardman Howard on August 5, 1930, after they worked together on the Pacific Stock Exchange building, a Miller and Pflueger architecture firm project. They had two daughters, Ellen (May 1931 – Oct 1987) and Galen (born April 1933).
During the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939–1940), Kent produced a group of 20 statues called Pacific Unity, that were grouped around grouped around the Fountain of Western Waters surrounded the statue of Pacifica (Court of Pacifica) by Ralph Stackpole. Each cast stone statue was created to represent the four different population groups in the Pacific; North American, South American, Asian and Pacific Islander. In 1941 the US Navy took over control of Treasure Island (location of the former Golden Gate International Exposition) and removed all but six of the statues. In 1994, six of the remaining statues were restored and put on display on Treasure Island at Building One.
Death and legacy
On March 24, 1957, Kent died in an accident while driving on the Pacific Coast Highway in Marin County.
Adaline Kent was an alumna and a former board member (1947–1957) of the San Francisco Art Institute, and left it $10,000 to establish an annual award for promising artists from California. The prize was awarded from 1957 to 2005. Winners included Ron Nagle (1978), Wally Hedrick (1985), David Ireland (1987), Mildred Howard (1991), Clare Rojas (2004), and the last recipient, Scott Williams (2005).