Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) was proud to call himself an American
artist, but he dreamed of travel to Europe, believing instinctively that
he would learn more there than would be possible in his home state of
Maine or even in New York. In 1909 Alfred Stieglitz gave Hartley his
first solo exhibition in New York, and a second successful show three
years later enabled him to head to Europe, where he spent time in Paris,
Berlin and Munich. His rise to prominence as a specifically American
modernist was based largely on the visual ideas and influences that he
encountered in these vibrant cities, which he then synthesized through
his own New England point of view. Hartley, who was by nature something
of a loner, never lost his wanderlust, and throughout his life found
inspiration in many other landscapes and cultures, including in southern
France, Italy, Bermuda, Mexico and Canada.
Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts, published to coincide with an
exhibition opening at the Vilcek Foundation in New York, offers a fresh
appraisal of a pioneering modernist whose work continues to be
celebrated for its spirituality, experimentation and innovation. Rick
Kinsel's introduction provides an overview of the manifold ways in which
Hartley's travels shaped his artistic vision, from experiencing the
latest art in Paris and finding a mentor there in Gertrude Stein to
meeting members of the Blaue Reiter group in Germany and developing an
interest in both Prussian military pageantry and Bavarian folk art; from
becoming fascinated with ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures while in
Mexico to being inspired by the traditional pueblo life of the Native
Americans of the Southwest.
William Low surveys items from the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection
of Bates College Museum in Maine - including memorabilia from the
artist's travels and artefacts reflecting his diverse spiritual
interests - and explains how they aid our understanding of Hartley's
motivation and passions. Among them are a photograph album tracing the
course of Hartley's peripatetic life from 1908 to 1930 and a notebook of
'Color Exercises', both of which are reproduced in full. Emily
Schuchardt Navratil considers how Hartley's desire for escape was
reflected in his love of the circus, a recurrent theme in his paintings,
drawings and writings. He was enthralled by the spectacle and the
nomadic existence, and he imagined circus performers to be members of
his own wandering troupe. For fifteen years he worked on a book devoted
to the subject, but it was left unfinished at his death; an 18-page
typescript version is reproduced here in its entirety.
Kinsel then explores Hartley's painting Canoe (Schiff), created in
Berlin in 1915 as part of his Amerika series of brightly coloured
works defined by imagery drawn from both Native American material
culture and German folk art. For Hartley, these paintings represented a
dual cultural identity. The main part of the book, by Navratil, features
some 100 paintings, drawings, photographs and postcards, arranged into
seven country- or state-themed sections, with a concluding section on
Hartley's personal possessions, which - because he had no permanent home
of his own - held extraordinary significance for him.
