Artist Marsden Hartley’s relationship with his home state of Maine? Well… it was complicated. And it inspired a body of work that’s the focus of a major new exhibition. You can see this retrospective in New York City now or later this year in Maine. Even better… allow Hartley’s bold paintings of Maine’s rugged landscape to inspire you to follow in his footsteps.
Hartley was born in 1877 in Lewiston, Maine, and though his studies and work took him far from “home,” this groundbreaking American Modernist painter eventually found his way back to the landscapes that make Maine such a distinctive destination.
In this video introducing the exhibition—a collaboration between The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Colby College Museum of Art—Met curator Randall Griffey sheds light on Hartley’s moody and unconventional depictions of Maine and his conflicted relationship with his conservative home state.
Hartley in NYC: The exhibition, Marsden Hartley’s Maine, will be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Met Breuer location (945 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 212-731-1675) through June 18, 2017. Showcasing the American artist’s lifelong artistic engagement with his home state, Marsden Hartley’s Maine features about 90 paintings and drawings that illuminate his extraordinarily expressive range, from Post-Impressionist interpretations of seasonal change in inland Maine to folk-inspired depictions of the state’s hearty inhabitants, majestic coastline and geological icon: Mount Katahdin.
The show catalog, available for purchase online, is the first in-depth compilation of the artist’s Maine-inspired works. To provide context, the exhibition also features works by artists who influenced Hartley including French modernist Paul Cézanne and American painters Winslow Homer and Albert Pinkham Ryder.
Hartley in Waterville, Maine: The exhibition moves to the Colby College Museum of Art (5600 Mayflower Hill, Waterville, Maine 207-859-5600) from July 8 through November 12, 2017, just in time for summer and fall vacationers to see these works in close proximity to the locations that inspired them.
See Hartley’s Maine: In support of the exhibition, the Maine Office of Tourism has created this map and guide to places in Maine every Hartley fan should see, from the Western mountains to the Downeast seacoast and as far north as Aroostook County. In addition to visiting spots Hartley painted, you can also see additional original works by “The Painter of Maine” at the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor, the Lewiston Public Library and the Portland Museum of Art.
