B. 1900, Kentfield, CA; D. 1957, Marin County, CA
Adaline Kent was an essential member of the Bay Area’s community of modernist artists, which included Charles H. Howard, Madge Knight, John Langley Howard, Robert Boardman Howard, and Jane Berlandina. Kent adapted biomorphic surrealism to a West Coast sensibility, incorporating references to nature, mysticism and spirit in large-scale drawings, colorful abstractions incised on plaster, sculpted bronze, magnesite or terracotta. These abstract works, conjuring the rock formations of the Sierra Nevada mountains or suggestive of anthropomorphic totems, are inspired by the landscape of California and her travels abroad.
Kent 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. Kent grew up in the shadow of Mt. Tampalais, and therefore with a love of the natural world that she shared with her husband Robert B. Howard. They often spent their summers exploring the High Sierra and winters skiing in the Tahoe region, often staying with close friend and fellow artist Jeanne Reynal, who had a house at nearby Soda Springs.
Kent was featured in key 1940s and 1950s exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Bienal de São Paulo, and exhibited with the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York. She was a peer of artists such as Ruth Asawa, Isamu Noguchi, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. Her work is in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, the Oakland Museum of California, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
