Born in Centerville, Rhode Island of Quaker heritage, Kenyon loved to paint the New England countryside. After attending the Moses Brown School in Providence and Rhode Island School of Design from 1879 to 1882, Kenyon traveled to Paris and enrolled in the Academie Julian in 1882. He traveled extensively in Europe between 1882 and 1889, painting in Holland, Venice, and France. Kenyon was one of the first Americans to join Gauguin and the circle of Impressionists working in the small Brittany village of Pont-Aven during the 1880's. He began spending his summers painting the French countryside and soon was winning recognition in both Europe and the United States. Kenyon's first one-man show, an exhibition of Pont-Aven works, was held in Providence, Rhode Island in 1886. In 1889 he exhibited at the Paris Salon.
After the Salon, Kenyon ceased his studies and returned to America. Although he would travel to Europe on several occasions, he resided in New England for the remainder of his life. At the suggestion of fellow Academie Julian student and best friend, Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922), Kenyon settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1901. Until his death in 1926, Kenyon spent many hours a day working outdoors, painting the scenes around him. He would begin and complete several paintings in the course of a day, as he preferred working on a smaller scale.
Kenyon's small, intimate portrayals of the Ipswich environs truly epitomize Impressionism. These works reveal the artist's fascination with the play of light and color, the desire to capture a fleeting moment on canvas, and a particular use of quick, painterly brush strokes of brilliant color. A friend once remarked about Kenyon, "His only desire is to paint nice bits of color." (Frederick Moffatt: Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922), Smithsonian, 1979, p. 36.) One of Kenyon's favorite subjects was the haystacks found on the Ipswich marshes, a motif frequently employed by his contemporary in France, Claude Monet. In 1988 a traveling retrospective of Kenyon's work showed at the Ball State University Art Gallery, the Florence Griswald Museum, and the Westmoreland Museum of Art.
Exhibitions:
National Academy of Design, New York, New York
Paris Salon, Paris, France 1889
Boston Art Club, Boston, Massachussetts, 1891
Florence Griswold Museum (retrospective), Old Lyme, Connecticut, 1988 (plus 25
works at Cooley Gallery)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
St. Botolph Club, Boston, Massachusetts
Memberships:
Providence Art Club, Providence, Rhode Island
North Shore Artist Association, Gloucester, Massachusetts
Museums:
Rhode Island School of Design
The Dayton Art Institute
Ball State University Art Gallery
Providence Art Club, Providence, Rhode Island
Moses Brown School, Providence, Rhode Island
References:
Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975, Sound View Press