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Kent is in the permanent collection of Chrysler, Smithsonian, Yale, Princeton, Brooklyn and many more. He is regarded as one of America's best sculptors and print makers. Completely self-taught as an artist, by 1963 he began to carve huge, discarded slate blackboards, and developed unique methods of printing on rice paper and mono-prints on fabric, working alone and without a printing press. From 1962 to 1965, he had one-person exhibitions at the Castellane Gallery, Madison Avenue, New York City, and at other museum and gallery exhibitions along the East Coast. His sculptures and prints were critically acclaimed, and purchased by museums and important collectors. In 1964, William Kent moved to Durham, CT, where he was able to live off sales of his art, supplemented by a part time job as the first curator for the John Slade Ely House in nearby New Haven. He carved the slates and made prints from 1963-1976, and then returned to carving monumental wood sculptures, completing 226 of them between 1977-2012. He was working on his 227th two days before he died. At his death 2,000 prints, and 250 of the over 800 sculptures carved in his lifetime, remained in the studio.