William Sergeant KENDALL ✿

William Sergeant Kendall (1869-1938) was an American painter and sculptor, most famous for his evocative scenes of domestic life; his wife and three young daughters were frequent subjects in his early work.

Kendall was born in Spuyten Duyvil, a neighborhood of the Bronx, New York in 1869. Back in the day, it was a picturesque village of tree-lined streets by the Harlem River. At the age of 12, Kendall began creating his first paintings. He enrolled at the Brooklyn Art Guild when he was fourteen. Thomas Eakins, became Kendall’s first teacher and a great influence on his choice of subject.

This sculpture "Quest" evokes the spiritual searching of a Breton peasant. Here the artist used the medium of painted wood, which was unusual for his era but appropriately reminiscent of church carvings of previous centuries. The dramatic and unusual "Quest" caused a sensation when it was exhibited at the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915 in San Francisco. Kendall's first cousin, Ann Saunders, served as the model for the piece.

Although mainly a painter, Kendall also modeled and carved sculptures throughout his career. His work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.