The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 18, 2025
Night Watch
1929
(American, 1882–1971)
Platemark: 20 x 13.8 cm (7 7/8 x 5 7/16 in.)
Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund 1930.568
© Courtesy of Plattsburgh State Art Museum/Estate of Sally Kent Gordon.
Catalogue raisonné: Jones 34; Zigrosser 33
Location: Not on view
Description
Rockwell Kent’s experiences as a sailor during a 1929 voyage to Greenland inspired this image. It is part of a set of wood engravings commissioned by the American Car and Foundry Company for a campaign promoting its motor yacht division. Rather than depicting realistic representations of life on a boat, Kent’s images evoke a heroic masculine ideal of freedom and adventure at sea. Using an electrotype of the woodblock—a chemical method for creating exact metal copies of three-dimensional objects—Kent also included the designs as full-page illustrations for his travel memoir N by E (1930).- Fairy Tales and Fables: Illustration and Storytelling in Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 4-September 8, 2024).The Precisionist Aesthetic in American Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 24-April 9, 1989).
- {{cite web|title=Night Watch|url=false|author=Rockwell Kent|year=1929|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1930.568