Eaton's Neck, Long Island

John Frederick Kensett

1872 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

Kensett painted Eaton’s Neck, Long Island in the last summer of his life, which he spent mainly on Contentment Island, near Darien, Connecticut. Eaton’s Neck, New York, was a short ferry ride across Long Island Sound. The rigorously simplified work is divided into three zones: sea, land, and sky. No extraneous elements complicate the astonishingly unconventional composition—a work notably ahead of its time.

Artist

John Frederick Kensett

Date

1872

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of Thomas Kensett, 1874