Quest

Better known as a painter specializing in subjects of children (his "Beatrice" of 1906 is in the Academy's collection), Kendall may have been encouraged to model in clay by Thomas Eakins while studying in the 1880s at the Brooklyn Art Association and at the Pennsylvania Academy. Subsequently Kendall went to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. During his years in France, Kendall spent many summer months in the art colonies on the coast of Brittany. The hardworking Breton peasants provided the subject matter for many of his early paintings and at least two sculptures. One of the latter, "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.