Hartley’s dark, cloud-filled landscape pays direct homage to painter Albert Pinkham Ryder. After seeing Ryder’s work in New York in 1909, Hartley, a native of Maine, executed a series of bleak, emotionally fraught, even tortured landscapes of his home state. This painting depicts the region of Stoneham Valley, near North Lovell, Maine, although Hartley painted it in New York from memory.
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Dark Mountain, No. 2
Artist:Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
Date:1909
Medium:Oil on commercially prepared paperboard (academy board), mounted to slatted wood board
Dimensions:20 × 24 in. (50.8 × 61 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
Accession Number:49.70.41
the artist (from 1909; to Stieglitz); Alfred Stieglitz, New York (possibly by 1912–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].
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Marsden Hartley," October 24, 1944–January 14, 1945, unnumbered cat. (p. 91; dated 1909(?), 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. 33).
Art Institute of Chicago. "Alfred Stieglitz: His Photographs and His Collection," February 2–29, 1948, no catalogue (checklist no. 40).
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).
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "From the Alfred Stieglitz Collection: An Extended Loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 22–August 12, 1951, no catalogue (checklist no. E.L.51.661; loan extended to May 15, 1961).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Columbia Bicentennial Exhibition," October 28, 1954–April 18, 1955, no catalogue.
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. "Marsden Hartley," February 3–March 6, 1961, not in catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist.
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.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 98.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Marsden Hartley's Maine," March 15–June 18, 2017, unnumbered cat. (fig. 56).
Waterville, Me. Colby College Museum of Art. "Marsden Hartley's Maine," July 8–November 12, 2017, unnumbered cat.
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, pp. 57, 59, ill.
Bruce Robertson. Marsden Hartley. New York, 1995, pp. 28, 30, 34, ill. (color).
Bram Dijkstra. American Expressionism: Art and Social Change 1920–1950. Exh. cat., Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio. New York, 2003, p. 68, colorpl. 19.
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. 133, 140, 263, no. 98, ill. (color).
Rachel Mustalish 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, p. 133.
Isabelle Duvernois and Rachel Mustalish inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, pp. 155, 177 n. 2.
Elizabeth Finch inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, p. 73.
Donna M. Cassidy inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, pp. 77, 93, 167, fig. 56 (color).
Marsden Hartley (American, Lewiston, Maine 1877–1943 Ellsworth, Maine)
1941–43
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