Just a collection of all things Greek from Kent. As far as we know (we are willing to be shown otherwise!), Kent never went to Greece, but he did use Greek themes during his lifetime. Perhaps as a student of architecture, he was fascinated by the ancient Greek columns and buildings.

First up, we have a clever little item from the Brickbuilder Ca 1917. Note the intentional puns…

In the December 1924 edition of The Bookman magazine, Kent illustrated an article by H.D entitled “People of Sparta”. Here are the two (unnamed) illustrations from that article:

 

Ca 1968 Kent illustrated a leaflet for the “Committe for the Preservation of our Greek Legacy.” We know nothing about the organization, and we have not been able to find anything online, so if anyone knows anything about it, or about the history of this leaflet, please drop us a line at willross@rockwellkent.us

Note, be careful sharing this one as you can see, it is a little controversial!

The following 3 items are courtesy of Forum friend and regular contributor Scott Ferris.

 

Front Cover

Back Cover

UPDATE (September 2023). We have been able to source the full leaflet featured above. With thanks to California State University Fullerton, the PDF of the leaflet is available Here

We also have a copy of the image from this leaflet, with an inscription in Russian.  We don’t know if this is contemporaneous with the leaflet above, or whether it is an earlier image.

Here is the translation (thanks to Forum friend Dmitry Kiselev):

“By this woodcut, our friend Rockwell Kent, famous American artist, calls for solidarity with Greek democrats.”

The image of the Parthenon, used in the leaflet above, (without the swastika) was used for a greeting card in 1939, for Charles Bruning. See the Greeting Cards of Rockwell Kent – no 233 (2013 Robert Rightmire) for more details.

According to Bob, this illustration was Kent’s response to the Metaxas Regime, the authoritarian regime under the leadership of General Iaoannis Metaxas that ruled Greece from 1936 to 1941. The regime took its name from a self-coup carried out by Metaxas, with royal support, on 4 August 1936. The image urges the people of Greece to rebuild their democracy as symbolized in the Parthenon.

Here is a gorgeous print of that image (the color may or may not have been added by Kent):

 

Of course, we all know that Kent Illustrated the “Complete Works of Shakespeare” (Doubleday, 1936) which included Troilus and Cressida. We would be remis if we did not include Kent’s illustration to accompany the play, with his inscription “‘Tis Troilus! there’s a man!” (yes, we know that Troilus was Trojan but Cressida was Greek!). It is below:

 

 

At the forum, we are always looking for new material, so if you know of anything else out there that relates to Greece, let us know! If and when we find anything else we will add it to this page.