While living in Berlin and Paris from 1923 to 1924, Hartley painted about thirty-five recollections of the New Mexico landscape that he had last seen when he visited Taos and Santa Fe in 1918–19. Remembering its sculptural topography, he evoked the natural wave rhythms in the land and sky. This scene is more detailed than most in the series and likely depicts the graveyard on the Taos Pueblo, located beside the ruins of the missionary church of San Geronimo, where converted native people were buried according to indigenous practices. Hartley typically painted from memory, in emulation of American artist Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847–1917), whom he admired and whose portrait he painted imaginatively in 1938.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Cemetery, New Mexico
Artist:Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
Date:ca. 1924
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:31 5/8 × 39 1/4 in. (80.3 × 99.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
Object Number:49.70.49
Inscription: Signed (lower right, encircled): M. H.
the artist (from 1924; possibly in 1925 to Stieglitz); Alfred Stieglitz, New York (possibly 1925–d. 1946; his estate, 1946–49; gift to MMA)
Anderson Galleries, New York. "Alfred Stieglitz Presents Seven Americans: 159 Paintings, Photographs and Things, Recent and Never Before Publicly [sic] Shown by Arthur G. Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Charles Demuth, Paul Strand, Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz," March 9–28, 1925 [possibly one of nos. 26–50 "Landscape and Still Life"].
New York. Grand Central Palace. "Exhibition of One Hundred Important Paintings by Living American Artists," April 15–27, 1929, no. 46 (as "Cemetery—New Mexico"; lent courtesy Intimate Gallery).
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "History of an American, Alfred Stieglitz: '291' and After, Selections from the Stieglitz Collection," July 1–November 1, 1944, no. 248 (as "Cemetery—New Mexico," 1920).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "20th Century Painters: A Special Exhibition of Oils, Water Colors and Drawings Selected from the Collections of American Art in the Metropolitan Museum," June 16–October 29, 1950, unnum. brochure (p. 6; dated 1919).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Selection Two: Twentieth-Century Art," June 4–September 2, 1985, no catalogue.
Canberra. Australian National Gallery. "20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," March 1–April 27, 1986, unnumbered cat. (p. 53; dated 1924).
Brisbane. Queensland Art Gallery. "20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," May 7–July 1, 1986, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Landscape Painting," April 4–August 13, 1989, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "14 Americans," July 16, 1990–January 2, 1991, no catalogue.
Tulsa, Okla. Philbrook Museum of Art. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 14–June 9, 1991, no. 55 (dated 1924).
Miami. Center for the Fine Arts. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 29–August 24, 1991, no. 55.
Omaha. Joslyn Art Museum. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 14–November 10, 1991, no. 55.
Tampa Museum of Art. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," December 14, 1991–February 8, 1992, no. 55.
Greenville, S. C. Greenville County Museum of Art. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," March 17–May 10, 1992, no. 55.
Madison, Wisc. Madison Art Center. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 6–August 2, 1992, no. 55.
Grand Rapids, Mich. Grand Rapids Art Museum. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 11–November 8, 1992, no. 55.
Stamford, Conn. Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion. "Modernists in (New) Mexico," September 27–December 27, 1996, unnumbered cat. (p. 14; dated 1924).
Paris. Musée d'Orsay. "New York et l'art moderne: Alfred Stieglitz et son cercle (1905–1930)," October 18, 2004–January 16, 2005, no. 120 (as "Indian Cemetery, New Mexico," 1924).
Madrid. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. "Nueva York y el arte moderno: Alfred Stieglitz y su circulo (1905–1930)," February 10–May 16, 2005, no. 120.
Santa Fe. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. "Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism," January 25–May 11, 2008, unnumbered cat. (fig. 94, as "Indian Cemetery, New Mexico").
Fort Worth. Amon Carter Museum. "Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism," June 6–September 7, 2008, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 105 (dated 1924).
Waldo Frank, Lewis Mumford, Dorothy Norman, Paul Rosenfeld, and Harold Rugg, ed. America and Alfred Stieglitz: A Collective Portrait. Garden City, N. Y., 1934, pl. XVa (detail), call it "New Mexico" and date it 1920.
Mabel Dodge Luhan. Taos and Its Artists. New York, 1947, p. 164, pl. 26, calls it "Mountain with Cemetery" and lists in the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz.
Barbara Haskell. Marsden Hartley. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1980, p. 73, fig. 67, dates it 1924.
Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall. "Modernist Painting in New Mexico 1913–1933." PhD diss., University of New Mexico, 1981, p. 120, fig. 22.
Patricia Janis Broder. The American West: The Modern Vision. Boston, 1984, pp. 148–49, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. "Georgia O'Keeffe." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 42 (Fall 1984), p. 34, fig. 34, dates it 1924.
Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall. Modernist Painting in New Mexico, 1913–1935. Albuquerque, 1984, pp. 50–51, fig. 20, dates it about 1922–24.
Michael Desmond in20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Exh. cat., Australian National Gallery. Canberra, 1986, p. 53, ill. (color).
Gail R. Scott. Marsden Hartley. New York, 1988, p. 72, fig. 56.
Lisa M. Messinger inThe Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., American Federation of Arts. New York, 1991, p. 157, no. 55, ill. p. 156 (color).
Lowery Stokes Sims inThe Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., American Federation of Arts. New York, 1991, p. 152.
Robert Rosenblum inThe Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., American Federation of Arts. New York, 1991, p. 10.
John Brandenburg. "Art Review: Philbrook Show Features 60 Landscape Paintings." Daily Oklahoman (May 29, 1991), p. 13.
Eliot Nusbaum. "Joslyn Hosts a Vivid Landscape Show." Des Moines Sunday Register (September 22, 1991), p. 7F.
Jeanne Hokin. Pinnacles & Pyramids: The Art of Marsden Hartley. Albuquerque, 1993, p. 51, colorpl. 13, dates it 1924.
Maria Costantino. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1994, ill. p. 20.
Sharyn Udall in Megan Bice and Sharyn Udall. The Informing Spirit: Art of the American Southwest and West Coast Canada, 1925–1945. Exh. cat., McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Ontario. Colorado Springs, 1994, p. 32, dates it 1922–24.
Suzan Campbell. Paintings of the Southwest. Ed. Arnold Skolnick. New York, 1994, p. 9, ill. p. 12 (color), dates it 1922–24.
Lois Palken Rudnick. Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture. Albuquerque, 1996, ill. p. 85.
Heather Hole. "'America as Landscape': Marsden Hartley and New Mexico, 1918–1924." PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005, pp. 259–60, fig. 8.6, calls it "Indian Cemetery, New Mexico" and dates it 1924.
Heather Hole. Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism. Exh. cat., Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe. New Haven, 2007, p. 107, fig. 94 (color).
Katja Fauth. Modernist Visions in Taos: Mabel Dodge Luhan and the Artists of the Stieglitz Circle. Marburg, Germany, 2009, pp. 113–14, fig. 21, dates it 1922–24.
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. 140, 265, no. 105, ill. (color).
Roberta Smith. "A Trans-Atlantic View of Modernism." New York Times (January 9, 2015), p. C30, dates it 1924.
Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
ca. 1917
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