Marsden Hartley - Adventurer in the Arts

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943)

Marsden Harrtley was proud to call himself an American artist, but he dreamed of travel to Europe, believing that he would learn more there than in his home state of Maine or even in New York. His rise to prominence as a specifically American modernist was based largely on the visual influences that he encountered in 1912–15 in the vibrant cities of Paris, Berlin and Munich, which he then synthesized through a New England perspective. Solitary by nature, Hartley never lost his wanderlust, and throughout his life found inspiration in many other landscapes and cultures, including in southern France, Italy, Bermuda, New Mexico, Mexico and Canada. Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts offers a fresh appraisal of this pioneering modernist, whose work continues to be celebrated for its spirituality and experimentation. Rick Kinsel’s introduction provides an overview of the manifold ways in which Hartley’s peripatetic life shaped his artistic vision. Essays by William Low, Emily Schuchardt Navratil and Kinsel explore works and artefacts in the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection of Bates College Museum of Art in Maine; Hartley’s love of the circus, a recurrent theme that reflected his desire for escape; and the painting Schiff, created in Berlin in 1915 with imagery from both Native American material culture and German folk art. The catalogue section, by Navratil, features over 100 paintings, drawings, photographs and postcards, arranged into six country- or state-themed chapters, with a concluding chapter on Hartley’s possessions, which – because he had no permanent home of his own – held extraordinary significance for him.

Accompanies an exhibition at Bates College Museum of Art, Maine, in October 2020, then travelling to New York in 2021