Painter, poet, and
pioneer American modernist, Marsden Hartley was
born in Lewiston, Maine, in 1887. Displaying an
early talent in draftsmanship, at the age of fifteen
Hartley won a scholarship to study at the Cleveland
School of Art. In 1898 he moved to New York City
and attended the art school of painter William Merritt
Chase before studying at the National Academy of
Design. Returning to Maine, he painted landscapes
in postimpressionist and modernist styles that reflected
his artistic training as well as his recent exposure
to groundbreaking artists and ideas. His first solo
exhibition was held in 1909 at Alfred Stieglitz'
influential gallery 291.
With financial support from Stieglitz, Hartley was
able to make two trips to Europe between 1912 and
1915. He went to Paris, where he experienced postimpressionism,
fauvism, and cubism first-hand. Unlike most of his
fellow Americans in Paris, Hartley sought the company
of German artists working there. Not only did they
share his affinity for expressing emotion in their
work, but they were intrigued with the theories
of mysticism. These concerns ran counter to cubism's
highly intellectualized approach, but for Hartley
German expressionism proved to be a complementary
influence. During a second visit to Germany in 1914-1915,
the artist forged a personal style in which he combined
the tightly structured arrangement of flat planes--a
concept borrowed from synthetic cubism--with the
dramatic color and loose brushwork of expressionism.
Returning to the United States in 1915, Hartley
traveled across the country painting mostly abstract
landscapes. In 1921 he returned to Europe where
he remained for about ten years, restlessly moving
from France to Italy and then Germany. Hartley continued
to experiment with European styles, often using
recollections of the American landscape as his subject
matter. After coming back to Maine in the mid-1930s,
Hartley reverted to a more straightforward interpretation
of nature. His bold and expressive paintings of
New England's mountains and coastlines began to
win critical acclaim. Not until after his death
did the artist gain widespread critical success.
All Images are copyrighted
and strictly for educational and viewing purposes.
Birds
of the Bagaduce
Oil on board
1939
Portrait
of a German Officer
Oil on canvas
1914
Still
Life
Oil on canvas
1920
Landscape No. 5
Oil on canvas
1922-1923
Mount Katahdin, Maine
Oil on hardboard
1942
Kofelberg Oberammergau
Lithograph
1934
Provincetown Abstraction
Oil on composition board
1916
Landscape No. 3, Cash Entry Mines,
New Mexico
Oil on canvas
1920
After the Storm, Vinalhaven
Oil on academy board
1938-1939
Berlin
Abstraction
Oil on canvas
1914-1915
A
Bermuda Window in a Semi-tropic Character
Oil on board
1917
