This bold design, together with Military Symbols 1 and Military Symbols 3 (MMA 62.15.1 and 62.15.3), reveals Hartley’s fascination with the military pageantry he saw in Berlin, where he traveled and lived between 1913 and 1914, until World War I forced him to return to the United States. Working in a manner closely related to Synthetic Cubism, Hartley combined in these drawings various military motifs: flags, uniforms, and medals.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Military Symbols 2
Artist:Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
Date:1914
Medium:Charcoal with traces of red, opaque, matte paint on paper
Dimensions:24 1/4 × 18 1/4 in. (61.6 × 46.4 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1962
Object Number:62.15.2
the artist (1914–d. 1943, his estate, 1943–61; estate no. 282; on consignment 1955–61 to Martha Jackson; sold in 1961 to Jackson); [Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, 1961; sold in 1961 to David Anderson]; [David Anderson Gallery, New York, 1961–62; sold to MMA]
New York. Anderson Galleries. "The Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters," March 13–25, 1916, no. 173 (as Drawing, for sale, $35).
New York. Martha Jackson Gallery. "Marsden Hartley: The Berlin Period, 1913–1915. Abstract Oils and Drawings," January 3–29, 1955, no catalogue (as one of checklist nos. 13–18, "Symbols," lent by the Estate of Marsden Hartley).
New York. Anderson Galleries. "Marsden Hartley: Paintings and Drawings," April 25–May 20, 1961, no catalogue.
Washington, D. C. Corcoran Gallery of Art. "The New Tradition: Modern Americans Before 1940," April 27–June 2, 1963, no. 45 (as "Military Symbols II," ca. 1914).
Baltimore Museum of Art. "1914: An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture," October 6–November 15, 1964, no. 85 (as "Military Symbols II").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist (dated ca. 1913–14).
Washington, D. C. National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution. "Roots of Abstract Art in America, 1910–1930," December 2, 1965–January 9, 1966, no. 84 (as "Military Symbols II").
Cedar Rapids Art Center. "From Synchromism Forward: A View of Abstract Art in America," November–December 3, 1967.
American Federation of Arts circulating exhibition. "From Synchromism Forward: A View of Abstract Art in America," November 1967–November 1968 (lent to numerous U.S. venues, including those listed below), no. 23.
Lansing. Kresge Art Center, Michigan State University. "From Synchromism Forward: A View of Abstract Art in America," July 14–August 4, 1968.
New York. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. "Twentieth-Century American Drawing: Three Avant-Garde Generations," January 23–March 21, 1976, no. 50 (as "Military Symbol II," ca. 1913–14).
Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. "Amerikanische Zeichner des 20.Jahrhunderts—Drei Generationen von der Armory Show bis heute," May 27–July 11, 1976, no. 43.
Minneapolis. Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota. "Dictated by Life: Marsden Hartley's German Paintings and Robert Indiana's Hartley Elegies," April 14–June 18, 1995, no. 7 (dated ca. 1913–14).
Chicago. Terra Museum of American Art. "Dictated by Life: Marsden Hartley's German Paintings and Robert Indiana's Hartley Elegies," July 11–September 17, 1995, no. 7.
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. "Magie der Zahl in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts," February 1–May 19, 1997, no. 2.13 (dated 1913–14).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "World War I and the Visual Arts," July 31, 2017–January 7, 2018 (MMA Bulletin, Fall 2017, fig. 7).
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, pp. 59–60, ill. [erroneously identified as "Military Symbols 3"], dates it about 1913–14.
George Shane. "Abstract Art Show Opens Tour at C.R." Des Moines Register (November 19, 1967), p. 14.
"Abstract Art in U.S. Featured in Exhibit." State Journal (Lansing, Michigan) (July 14, 1968), p. D-5.
Karin von Maur inMagie der Zahl in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts. Ed. Karin von Maur. Exh. cat., Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Ostfildern bei Stuttgart, 1997, pp. 31, 251, no. 2.13, ill. p. 46.
Jennifer Farrell. "World War I and the Visual Arts." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 75 (Fall 2017), p. 8, fig. 7 (color).
Emily Schuchardt Navratil 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. 102.
Managing Editor Michael Cirigliano II explores the ways in which two queer artists, Marsden Hartley and Wilfred Owen, used their respective mediums to memorialize the effects of World War I.
Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
1939–40
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