Hartley spent a productive summer in 1916 in the company of Charles Demuth and Eugene O'Neill in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The Cape Cod resort was a favorite spot for artists, writers, and actors. Within this small format, several houses, sailboats, and the tall Pilgrim Monument are compressed into flat, geometric forms. Hartley's titles from the 1910s, such as Movement, Symphony, and Arrangement —like those first used by Whistler, suggest musical analogies for visual imagery.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Movement No. 5, Provincetown Houses
Artist:Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
Date:1916
Medium:Oil and charcoal on paperboard
Dimensions:20 in. × 15 15/16 in. (50.8 × 40.5 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
Accession Number:49.70.43
Inscription: Inscribed and dated (verso, in graphite): Movement 5, Provincetown 1916.
the artist (from 1916; to Stieglitz); Alfred Stieglitz, New York (by 1937–d. 1946; his estate, 1946–49; gift to MMA)
New York. 291. "A Representative Group of Paintings and Drawings by Hartley, Marin, Walkowitz, Wright, Georgia O'Keeffe," November 22–December 20, 1916, no catalogue [possibly this work].
New York. 291. "Marsden Hartley's Recent Work, Together with Examples of His Evolution," January 22–February 7, 1917, no catalogue [possibly this work].
Los Angeles. Museum of History, Science, and Art. "Exhibition of Paintings by American Modernists," February 1–29, 1920, no. 28 (as "Movement, Provincetown").
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings Showing the Later Tendencies in Art," April 16–May 15, 1921, no. 257 (as "Movement: Provincetown") [possibly this work].
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Abstract Painting in America," February 12–March 22, 1935, no. 54 (as "Provincetown", 1917, lent by Mr. Alfred Stieglitz) [possibly this work].
New York. An American Place. July 1944, no catalogue (as "Movement 5").
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Marsden Hartley," October 24, 1944–January 14, 1945, unnumbered cat. (p. 91; as "Movement No. 5. Provincetown Houses," lent by Alfred Stieglitz, New York).
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Alfred Stieglitz Exhibition: His Collection," June 10–August 31, 1947, no catalogue (checklist no. 37).
Art Institute of Chicago. "Alfred Stieglitz: His Photographs and His Collection," February 2–29, 1948, no catalogue (checklist no. 12).
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).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Painting: 1905–1950," April 19–October 7, 1991, no catalogue.
New York. Hollis Taggart Galleries. "From Hawthorne to Hofmann: The Provincetown Art Colony, Vignettes 1899–1945," November 14, 2003–January 17, 2004, unnumbered cat. (pl. 21).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 100.
Hudson D. Walker. "Marsden Hartley." Kenyon Review 9 (Spring 1947), p. 253, calls it "Provincetown Houses".
"Summer Aesthetics—Paris Theater Report." Christian Science Monitor (August 19, 1950), p. 6, ill.
George Heard Hamilton. "The Alfred Stieglitz Collection." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), pp. 385–86, fig. 17.
Gail R. Scott. Marsden Hartley. New York, 1988, p. 60, pl. 42.
Malcolm Robinson. The American Vision: Landscape Paintings of the United States. London, 1988, p. 113, ill. p. 112 (color).
Amy Ellis inMarsden Hartley. Ed. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser. Exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. New Haven, 2002, p. 97, fig. 3 (color).
Stephen Kornhauser and Ulrich Birkmaier inMarsden Hartley. Ed. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser. Exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. New Haven, 2002, pp. 274, 277 n. 44.
Michael Taylor inFrom Hawthorne to Hofmann: Provincetown Vignettes, 1899–1945. Exh. cat., Hollis Taggart Galleries. New York, 2003, pp. 33–34, colorpl. 21.
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. 136, 264, no. 100, ill. (color).
Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
1941–43
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