William Kent

William Kent (1919-2012) sculptor and printmaker, was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1919. During He studied at Northwestern University and Yale University. Originally attending Yale to study music theory he became more interested in painting and sculpture. In the early 1960’s he found a lot of slate blackboards that had been discarded and carved one into a printing plate. Finding a medium that suited him the slate relief prints would dominate his work for the next for most of the next fifteen years. He floated in the same “Pop” circles as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein and his work was hung in the Whitney Museum. An exhibit in Castellane Gallery in 1965 was the first major change for the artist. His work was selling well, however, although he was let go as a part time curator for the John Slade Ely House as they viewed his work as pornography. In 1967 his gallery abruptly closed, causing the artist to sink into depression, he secluded himself in his studio and made prints and sculptures .