1000 Museums

American painter Marsden Hartley, born in Lewiston Maine on January 4th, 1877, had an affinity for color and shape most evident in his decorative surfaces and abstract paintings produced early in his artistic career. As his career developed, the application of shape and color organically moved from abstraction towards a subject matter consisting of landscapes and still lifes. Although the subject matter became less abstract, Hartley’s bold application and use of color remained consistent throughout his oeuvre, cementing his work as crucial in American Modernism.