Marsden Hartley

About Marsden Hartley

A pioneering modernist painter who was part of the circle of artists around legendary dealer Alfred Stieglitz, Hartley painted landscapes, portraits, and still lifes imbued with a spiritual expressiveness. Whether treating the mysticism of Native American cultures, the hardiness of rural Maine, or the military pageantry of pre-World War I Germany, Hartley's works encompass the defining nature of his subjects, and seek to represent much more than observed reality.

A pioneering modernist painter who was part of the circle of artists around legendary dealer Alfred Stieglitz, Hartley painted landscapes, portraits, and still lifes imbued with a spiritual expressiveness. Whether treating the mysticism of Native American cultures, the hardiness of rural Maine, or the military pageantry of pre-World War I Germany, Hartley's works encompass the defining nature of his subjects, and seek to represent much more than observed reality. Hartley possessed a deep attachment to nature, and for him, a Maine landscape was not simply a picturesque view, but rather something evoking the profound geologic power as well as the poetic isolation of the state where he was born. Hartley, who worked primarily in oil, also produced a number of pastels over the course of his career, and for a brief period, he experimented with painting on glass. Although rooted in reality, Hartley's works selectively emphasize certain visual elements of a scene, endowing them with a monumentality that reflects what he saw as their spiritual and symbolic nature. This effect is often heightened by his use of strongly outlined forms and flattened space. His variety of subjects look back upon the many places he lived and visited during his peripatetic life -- Maine, Paris, Germany, Mexico, New York, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Cape Cod, Gloucester, Nova Scotia, Bermuda, and the south of France among them.

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