10 things to know about Marsden Hartley: America’s Modernist 

• 1
• His real name was Edmund

Marsden Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine in 1877 — the ninth child of Thomas and Eliza Hartley — and given the name Edmund. After the death of his mother when he was eight, his father remarried Martha Marsden. In 1906, at the age of 29, he adopted Martha’s maiden name as a middle name. Two years later, in 1908, he dropped his first name ‘Edmund’ and became known as Marsden Hartley.

• 2
• He was known for experimenting with a wide range of painting styles

Although American Modernism is a movement that represented new forms of expression, not a cohesive style or focus, its artists helped to usher in a new era of creativity in post-war America. Hartley, an affiliate of the movement, believed that an artist should experiment across styles and subjects. Throughout his life, he employed diverse techniques, shifting from expressionism to cubism to figuration, and producing various genre paintings that ranged from still lifes to landscapes.

• 3
• He was part of the Stieglitz Circle

Some of Hartley’s earliest compositions were landscape paintings of his native Maine. These works — influenced by Post-Impressionist techniques and the textured brushstrokes of the Italian painter Giovanni Segantini — captured the attention of photographer, publisher and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz was so taken with Hartley’s paintings that he agreed to mount a solo exhibition at his reputed gallery, Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, colloquially known as ‘291’.

• 4
• He was drawn to German expressionism early in his career

In 1912 Hartley left New York for Paris. While there, he formed a close bond with the sculptor Arnold Rönnebeck and his younger cousin Lieutenant Karl von Freyburg. Rönnebeck introduced Hartley to the work of Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc and their publication Der Blaue Reiter, an almanac related to German expressionist theory. Hartley was immediately drawn to their style and ideas, and began to incorporate elements of expressionism into his own work, embracing abstraction and a dramatic colour palette. 

In 1913, Hartley made his first trip to Germany at the invitation of Rönnebeck and returned later that year to live in Berlin permanently. He fell in love with the city immediately and, while there, created a series of 14 paintings inspired by the German military. These works, like the celebrated Portrait of a German Officer (1914) – an abstracted depiction of von Freyburg – established Hartley as a pioneer of American modern art.

• 5
• Cubism was another important influence

At the outbreak of WWI, Hartley was forced to return to the United States. Devastated by the death of his close friend von Freyburg and his involuntary departure from Germany, Hartley traveled to Provincetown at the urging of the journalist John Reed.

• 6
• He lived and worked all over the United States

Hartley traveled extensively throughout his life, both nationally and internationally. In the United States, he bounced around Ohio, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Mexico before settling back in his home state of Maine. 

After his stays in Provincetown and Bermuda, he traveled west to New Mexico, where he was captivated by the desert scenery. Several years later, while once again living in Paris, he embarked on New Mexico Recollections, a powerful series of landscapes done entirely from memory. Drawing inspiration from the rugged topography and rich colours of the southwest, he completed around 35 recollections that convey a sacred, dreamlike connection to the land.

• 7
• Later in his career, he strove to become ‘The painter of Maine’

Hartley’s Maine paintings show him drawing from the tradition of Maine landscape painters while also bringing new artistic elements like figuration into his compositions for the first time. Before his death in 1943, Hartley painted an astounding array of subject matter across his home state, from the beaches and coastline to the inhabitants and wildlife. This body of work is evidence of an artist at home both physically and emotionally, confident in his singular artistic language.

After decades of a peripatetic existence, Hartley returned to Maine with the goal of becoming ‘The painter of Maine.’ He would remain there for the rest of his life, and his works from this period display a spiritual appreciation for the landscape. 

• 8
• He was also a writer

During his first stay in Paris, Hartley was introduced to Gertrude Stein, who encouraged him as both an artist and writer. Throughout his lifetime, he published poems, essays and stories in a variety of small magazines, and also produced a book of essays and three volumes of poetry. Writing was an integral and enduring element of his creative output, and several volumes of his later writings were published posthumously.

• 9
• Music was a lasting theme throughout his oeuvre

The relationship between the visual and musical arts was a lifelong exploration of Hartley’s. Some of his earliest Maine landscapes reference music in their titles, and they were exhibited at 291 under the collective titles ‘Songs of Autumn’ and ‘Songs of Winter’.

• 10
• His work would foreshadow several movements to come

Hartley’s work predated movements like Pop art and Abstract Expressionism, but elements of his work anticipate these subsequent forms of expression. In his later Maine landscapes, the emotive quality of his brushwork is a direct line to the emergence of Abstract Expressionism. Later on, Robert Indiana, an iconic figure in the Pop art movement, created a series of silkscreen prints entitled The Hartley Elegies (1989-94). Inspired by Hartley’s expressionist Berlin paintings, they pay tribute to the artist’s lasting impact.