Weisman Art Museum Touring Exhibits

Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) was at the center of the artistic and cultural maelstrom known today as early American modernism. His life and his art were never static, and Hartley responded to the drastic changes-political, cultural, and artistic-that took place over the span of his career. He is equally well known for his groundbreaking abstract works and his lyrical landscapes.

This exhibition presents superb examples of Hartley's work from each episode of his output. Early post-impressionist Maine mountain scenes, preWWI abstractions completed in Paris and Berlin, Provincetown experiments, New Mexican landscapes, still lifes from the 1920s and 1930s, Bavarian mountain pastels, 1930s archaic portraits, and late Maine landscapes are part of the work included in the show.

Marsden Hartley is one of the most important artists from the American early modern period. He was part of the heady group surrounding Alfred Stieglitz and his galleries in the early decades of this century. Arthur Dove, John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Paul Strand were his peers and other core artists of the Stieglitz circle. New York and the Stieglitz crowd acted as a base of support and friendship for Hartley, but not a permanent home. He constantly shifted from place to place, living abroad several times and in varying locales across the country during the course of his life.

For the first forty years of his life, Hartley pursued the ideals and philosophical principles of American transcendentalism. He expressed the fundamental beliefs of this essentially nineteenth-century world view in the most radical visual expression of the early twentieth century. Unwavering reliance on the self and a keen subjective sensitivity were cornerstones of Emerson's and Thoreau's transcendentalism as well as Hartley's artistic practice.

Hartley shifted radically from this approach after the First World War. Instead of embracing a subjective approach, he honored rational intellect and objectivity. Where once he claimed that "true art cannot explain itself" and "I am by nature a visionary," after WWI Hartley asserted that "real art comes from the brain, not the soul." Toward the end of his life in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he again shifted gears and returned to a passionate belief in the subjective and the soul.

The catalogue text for Marsden Hartley: American Modern traces this evolution in Hartley's thinking and art. Hartley's vacillations keep in step with sweeping cultural changes wrought by the experience of the First World War. A sharp turn toward conservative values was felt around the globe in the 1920s and 1930s. Hartley's change of color and tone during this period stands with a multitude of other examples. The text analyzes Hartley's shifting artistic practice and beliefs in the context of the cultural and political realities that deeply affected the man and his times.

Works in the Exhibition: The exhibition includes 37 paintings, 17 drawing and prints, and two portrait sculptures of Hartley.

Gallery Space: Requires approximately 350-400 lineal feet of gallery space.

Fee: The fee for 10-week bookings is $35,000, and $3,500 for each additional week. Pro-rated shipping is approximately $9,000.