Beginning in the mid-1930s, Hartley, a restless artist who had previously been associated with the European avant-garde, proclaimed himself to be the "Painter from Maine." Between 1939 and 1942, he created more than eighteen bold paintings of Maine’s highest peak, Mount Katahdin, a geological landmark that, as the northernmost terminus of the Appalachian Trail, resonated with both regional and national symbolism. Hartley’s flat and rough-hewn depiction of form aligns his work with folk art, which audiences and critics embraced throughout the period as inherently American.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Open Access
As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.
API
Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.
the artist (until d. 1943; his estate, 1943–44; on consignment until October 7, 1942 to William Macbeth Gallery, New York, no. 9612; on consignment 1942–44 to Paul Rosenberg Gallery, New York; sold in 1944 to Rosenberg); [Paul Rosenberg, New York, 1944; no. 1066 559; sold on December 22, 1944 to Lowenthal]; Edith and Milton Lowenthal, New York (1944–his d. 1987); Edith Lowenthal, New York (1987–d. 1991, her bequest to MMA)
New York. Hudson D. Walker. "Marsden Hartley: Recent Paintings of Maine," March 11–30, 1940, no. 18 (as "Mt. Ktaadn—Autumn #2").
Cleveland Museum of Art. "The 16th Exhibition of Contemporary American Oils," June 14–July 14, 1940, unnum. checklist (published in Ref. Cleveland Bulletin 1940, as "Mt. Katahdin: Autumn, No. 2").
New York. Macbeth Gallery. "Marsden Hartley," March 9–28, 1942, no. 9 (as "Mount Katahdin, No. 2").
New York. Paul Rosenberg & Co. "Paintings by Hartley, Rattner, Weber," November 3–28, 1942, no. 1 (as "Mt. Katahdin, Autumn," 1939).
Detroit Institute of Arts. "Advance Trends in Contemporary American Art," April 4–30, 1944, no. 47 (as "Mt. Katahdin, Maine," lent by Paul Rosenberg, New York).
San Francisco Museum of Art. "Contemporary Paintings," July 11–August 13, 1944, no catalogue.
Bloomington. Indiana University Museum of Art. "Recent Paintings of Outstanding American Artists," Fall 1944, no catalogue.
New York. M. Knoedler & Co. (drawings) and Paul Rosenberg & Co. (paintings). "Drawings and Paintings by Marsden Hartley (1877–1943)," December 11–30, 1944, no. 10 (as "Mount Katahdin, Maine," shown at Paul Rosenberg & Co.).
Boston. Institute of Modern Art. "Four Modern American Painters: Peter Blume, Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Jacob Lawrence," March 2–April 1, 1945, no. 33 (as "Mount Katahdin—Autumn No. 2," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Milton Lowenthal).
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "New York Private Collections," July 20–September 12, 1948, unnumbered cat. (as "Mount Katahdin, Autumn No. 2," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Milton Lowenthal).
Buffalo. Albright Art Gallery. "Expressionism in American Painting," May 10–June 29, 1952, no. 34 (as "Mount Katahdin, Maine," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Milton Lowenthal, New York, New York).
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection," October 1–November 2, 1952, no. 44 (as "Mt. Katahdin, Autumn, No. 2").
Minneapolis. Walker Art Center. "Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection," November 28, 1952–January 17, 1953, no. 44.
Norfolk, Va. Norfolk Museum. "Significant American Moderns," March 1953, unnumbered cat. (as "Mount Katahdin, Maine [Autumn No. 2]," lent by Edith and Milton Lowenthal, New York).
Fort Worth Art Center. "Inaugural Exhibition," October 8–31, 1954, no. 40 (as "Mount Katahdin, Maine [Autumn No. 2]," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Milton Lowenthal, New York, New York).
New York. AFA Gallery. "Selections from the Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection," May 25–June 5, 1964, no catalogue.
Brooklyn Museum. "Modernist Art from the Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection," March 21–May 10, 1981, no. 34 (as "Mt. Katahdin, Maine, Autumn No. 2").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Art: The Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection," October 10, 1996–January 12, 1997, unnumbered cat. (p. 11; published in MMA Bulletin 54, summer 1996).
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries," January 28–April 22, 2001, unnumbered cat. (pl. 158; as "Mount Katahdin, Maine No. 2").
Albany. New York State Museum. "Twentieth-Century American Landscapes from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 29–November 4, 2001, no catalogue.
Hartford. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. "Marsden Hartley," January 17–April 20, 2003, no. 91.
Washington, D. C. Phillips Collection. "Marsden Hartley," June 7–September 7, 2003, no. 91.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. "Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art—Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 6, 2012–January 4, 2013, no. 103.
Beijing. National Museum of China. "Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art—Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 8–May 9, 2013, no. 103.
Art Institute of Chicago. "America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s," June 5–September 18, 2016, no. 20 (as "Mt. Katahdin [Maine], Autumn #2").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Marsden Hartley's Maine," March 15–June 18, 2017, unnumbered cat. (fig. 132).
Waterville, Me. Colby College Museum of Art. "Marsden Hartley's Maine," July 8–November 12, 2017, unnumbered cat.
"Art Brevities." New York Herald Tribune (March 24, 1940), p. E8.
"Exhibitors and Exhibits." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 27 (June 1940), p. 99.
Bangor Daily Commercial (January 15, 1940), ill.
"Katahdin as Seen by Bangor Painting." Bangor Daily News (February 8, 1940), p. 6, ill. (on easel, with the artist).
"Macbeth Galleries." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (March 15, 1942), p. 37 [possibly this picture].
"In the Art Galleries." New York Herald Tribune (December 17, 1944), p. C6.
Bernard Myers. Expressionism in American Painting. Exh. cat., Albright Art Gallery. Buffalo, 1952, pp. 27, 59, no. 34, ill. p. 39.
Jacqueline Taylor. "Expressionist Art Is Gloomy View of Present Society." Buffalo Evening News (May 10, 1952), p. 8 (Features section), ill.
Bertha Fanning Taylor. "Significant Moderns Show May Prove Norfolk's Most Important Art Event." Norfolk Virginian-Pilot (March 15, 1953), part 5, p. 11, ill.
Hudson Walker, Elizabeth McCausland, and Mary Bartlett Cowdrey. "Marsden Hartley." Archives of American Art Journal 8 (January 1968), p. 19.
Barbara Haskell. Marsden Hartley. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1980, p. 118, fig. 103.
John R. Lane inThe Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection. Exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum. New York, 1981, pp. 4–5.
Sarah Faunce inThe Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection. Exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum. New York, 1981, p. 32, no. 34, ill. p. 40 (color).
Vivien Raynor. "Art: Lowenthals Display Collection in Brooklyn." New York Times (May 1, 1981), p. C20.
Donna M. Cassidy. "'On the Subject of Nativeness': Marsden Hartley and New England Regionalism." Winterthur Portfolio 29 (Winter 1994), pp. 239–41, fig. 9, calls it "Mt. Katahdin, Maine".
Lisa Mintz Messinger. "American Art: The Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 54 (Summer 1996), pp. 7, 11, 46, ill. (color and bw), calls it "Mt. Katahdin, Maine, No. 2".
Philippe de Montebello. "Director's Note." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 54 (Summer 1996), p. 3.
James M. Dennis. Renegade Regionalists: The Modern Independence of Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry. Madison, Wisc., 1998, p. 237, fig. 147.
Townsend Ludington in Sarah Greenough. Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2000, pp. 415, 533, colorpl. 158.
Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser inMarsden Hartley. Ed. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser. Exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. New Haven, 2002, p. 27.
Donna M. Cassidy inMarsden Hartley. Ed. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser. Exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. New Haven, 2002, p. 185.
Kristina Wilson inMarsden Hartley. Ed. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser. Exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. New Haven, 2002, p. 322, no. 91, ill. p. 256 (color) and title page (color detail).
Stephen May. "Marsden Hartley, Four Decades as a Painter." Antiques and the Arts Weekly (February 21, 2003), p. 42.
Stephen Goode. "Hartley's Talent." Insight on the News (Washington, D.C.) 19 (July 22–August 4, 2003), pp. 36–37, 39, ill.
Blake Gopnik. "A Nomadic Visionary." Washington Post (June 8, 2003), p. N6, ill.
Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser. "Marsden Hartley and Folk Art." Magazine Antiques 163 (January 2003), p. 157, colorpl. XII.
Donna M. Cassidy inEuropean Muses, American Masters 1870–1950. Exh. cat., Portland Museum of Art. Portland, Me., 2004, p. 76, ill. p. 89 (color).
Donna M. Cassidy. Marsden Hartley: Race, Region, and Nation. Hanover, N.H., 2005, pp. 77–78, fig. 2.12.
Heather Hole. "'America as Landscape': Marsden Hartley and New Mexico, 1918–1924." PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005, p. 274, fig. C.1.
Ilene Susan Fort inMarsden Hartley: The German Paintings, 1913–1915. Ed. Dieter Scholz. Exh. cat., Neue Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Berlin, 2014, p. 127, fig. 16 (color), calls it "Mt. Katahdin, Maine, No. 2"; erroneously cites it as fig. 15 in the text.
Emily Setina. "'Mountains Being a Language with Me': Marianne Moore, Marsden Hartley, and Modernist Revision." Modernism/modernity 22 (January 2015), pp. 153–54, 163, figs. 1 (color), 2 (with the artist, Ref. Bangor Daily News 1940), calls it "Mt. Katahdin, Autumn, No. 2" in the text and "Mt. Katahdin, Maine, Number 2" in the caption.
Sarah Kelly Oehler inAmerica after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s. Ed. Judith A. Barter. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 2016, pp. 67, 69, 185, no. 20, figs. 8 (color), 9 (with the artist, Ref. Bangor Daily News1940).
Andrew Gelfand inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, p. 27.
Randall R. Griffey inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, pp. 133, 138–39, 168, figs. 132 (color), 137 (with the painter, Ref. Bangor Daily News 1940).
Isabelle Duvernois and Rachel Mustalish inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, pp. 162–63, 177 n. 14.
Donna M. Cassidy, Elizabeth Finch, and Randall R. Griffey inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, p. 34.
Donna M. Cassidy, Elizabeth Finch, and Randall R. Griffey. "'My native continent': Maine's Influence on the Art of Marsden Hartley." Magazine Antiques 184 (March/April 2017), pp. 106–7, fig. 13 (color), call it "Mount Katahdin (Maine), Autumn, #2".
Holland Cotter. "A Muse Beckoning Until the End." New York Times (March 17, 2017), ill. p. C15.
David Salle. "Marsden Hartley's Paintings." The Artist Project: What Artists See When They Look at Art. Ed. Chris Noey. New York, 2017, pp. 200–201, ill. (color), calls it "Mt. Katahdin (Maine), Autumn #2".
Mark Feeney. "Return of the Native." Boston Globe (April 2, 2017), p. N3, ill. (color).
Bob Keyes. "'Marsden Hartley's Maine' Focuses on a Complicated Love Affair." Portland Press Herald [pressherald.com]. April 16, 2017, ill. (color).
Abra Levenson. "Figures and Things: Charles Demuth, 1908–1935." PhD diss., Princeton University, 2018, p. 31, fig. 27.
Frank Henry Goodyear III in "Marsden Hartley." At First Light: Two Centuries of Maine Artists, Their Homes and Studios. New York, 2019, ill. p. 71 (color).
Rick Kinsel in Rick Kinsel William Low and Emily Schuchardt Navratil. Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts. Exh. cat., Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, Maine. London, 2020, p. 18, ill. p. 19 (color).
Publishing and Marketing Assistant Rachel High discusses the work of Marsden Hartley and his relationship to his native state with Marsden Hartley's Maine co-curator Randall Griffey.
Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
1941–43
Resources for Research
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Met's engagement with art from 1890 to today includes the acquisition and exhibition of works in a range of media, spanning movements in modernism to contemporary practices from across the globe.
