Still Life

During the summer of 1917, Marsden Hartley spent time at an art colony in Ogunquit, Maine, established by prominent collector Hamilton Easter Field. Having just spent time abroad, Hartley was intrigued by the Bavarian folk tradition of painting on glass and he expressed an eagerness to Alfred Stieglitz to finally pursue the medium. Regarding these works, Barbara Haskell writes: "The paintings themselves are distinct from anything that Hartley had ever done, although they do continue the still-life format...His presentation of outlined symmetrical images relates directly to the American folk art tradition. But in technique Hartley's pieces draw on the German tradition, for the solid paint areas and blocky background division closely resemble German folk art...The formal simplicity in Hartley's paintings and their occasionally crude executions were perhaps due to the difficulty of painting in reverse. Writing later to Rebecca Strand, Hartley noted the extreme fragility and attendant difficulty, adding that 'it nearly killed me and I never had the courage to take it up again.'" (Marsden Hartley, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1980, p. 57)