Marsden Hartley

Born in Lewiston, Maine, Marsden Hartley became one of the most famous early modernist artists of twentieth-century American art, known for landscapes, still lifes, and some portraits. His painting showed a focus on monumental shapes, especially clouds and landscape forms, and his unique style has been described as “an extreme and up-to-date impressionism” and “emerging modernism that evolved through Impressionism”.

He studied art in Cleveland, Ohio and then in 1898 went to the Chase School in New York and at the National Academy of Design. He continued to spend much time in Maine painting landscapes, and by 1909 had his first exhibition, which was held at New York Gallery 291, run by Alfred Stieglitz. There he became involved with a social circle of modernists that included Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, and John Marin.