Soon after his May 1909 exhibition at "291," Hartley saw Albert Pinkham Ryder's painting Moonlight Marine (1870–90; The Metropolitan Museum of Art), a classic example of American romanticism. It sparked a new series of emotionally and tonally dark landscapes of Maine, including this work and The Dark Mountain, Number 2 (MMA 49.70.41). In March 1910 a number of Hartley's "dark landscapes" were included in the "291" group show "Younger American Painters," which placed him in the company of Arthur Dove, John Marin, and Max Weber, among others.
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Dark Mountain, No. 1
Artist:Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
Date:1909
Medium:Oil on commercially prepared paperboard (academy board)
Dimensions:14 × 12 in. (35.6 × 30.5 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
Accession Number:49.70.47
the artist (1909–10; in 1910 to Stieglitz); Alfred Stieglitz, New York (1910–d. 1946; his estate, 1946–49; gift to MMA)
New York. 291. "The Younger American Painters," March 9–21, 1910, no catalogue [possibly this work].
New York. 291. "Exhibition of Recent Paintings and Drawings by Marsden Hartley," February 7–26, 1912, no catalogue [possibly this work].
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Pioneers of Modern Art in America," April 9–May 19, 1946, no. 47 [possibly this work].
Art Institute of Chicago. "Alfred Stieglitz: His Photographs and His Collection," February 2–29, 1948, no catalogue (checklist no. 20).
Rochester, N. Y. George Eastman House. "Photo-Secession: Photography as a Fine Art," October 15, 1960–January 15, 1961, not in catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Landscape Painting," April 4–August 13, 1989, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 97.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Marsden Hartley's Maine," March 15–June 18, 2017, unnumbered cat. (fig. 39).
Waterville, Me. Colby College Museum of Art. "Marsden Hartley's Maine," July 8–November 12, 2017, unnumbered cat.
Elizabeth McCausland. "The Return of the Native: Marsden Hartley." Art in America 40 (Spring 1952), p. 60, quotes from an inscription on verso of original cardboard backing Stieglitz wrote describing the painting.
George Heard Hamilton. "The Alfred Stieglitz Collection." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), pp. 385, 390, pl. 16.
Gail R. Scott. Marsden Hartley. New York, 1988, pp. 25–26, 157 n. 3, pl. 14.
William Innes Homer and Lloyd Goodrich. Albert Pinkham Ryder, Painter of Dreams. New York, 1989, p. 101, fig. 9-3.
Townsend Ludington. Marsden Hartley: The Biography of an American Artist. Boston, 1992, pp. 32, 44, 46, 64, discusses Dark Mountain series and Stieglitz's inscription on verso.
Jonathan Weinberg. Speaking for Vice: Homosexuality in the Art of Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, and the First American Avant-Garde. New Haven and London, 1993, p. 117, fig. 49.
Jeanne Hokin. Pinnacles & Pyramids: The Art of Marsden Hartley. Albuquerque, 1993, p. 23, fig. 11.
Bruce Robertson. Marsden Hartley. New York, 1995, pp. 28–30, ill. (color).
Bruce Robertson inPicturing Old New England: Image and Memory. Ed. William H. Truettner and Roger B. Stein. Exh. cat., National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, D.C., 1999, p. 190, fig. 217.
Lisa Mintz Messinger inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, pp. 132–33, 140, 263, no. 97, ill. (color).
Andrew Gelfand inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, p. 19.
Isabelle Duvernois and Rachel Mustalish inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, pp. 153–55, 177 n. 2, figs. 146 (color detail) 147 (color detail).
Elizabeth Finch inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, pp. 64, 167, fig. 39 (color).
Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
1941–43
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