Jean Kent

Brought up by her Main Line family to swim and sail, Vassar-educated Jean Kent trained at the Cambridge School of Design and at Boston's Museum School, then went adventuring, fetching up where she belonged, at the edge of the world.

Even in eccentric Provincetown she made heads turn on Commercial Street-a bulky, five-foot figure in a lumberjack shirt, squinting into the afternoon sun as she ambled toward the Bayer Gallery.

Jean Kent was a legend in her lifetime: whenever she went out on the Dolphin boats, they invariably sighted whales, as if, recognizing her kinship, the giant mammals made a special effort to be present. They were her best subjects caught for a mystical moment as they breached onto her drawin...