Marsden Hartley 1877 - 1943

Estate of the artist
Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York
Rita and Daniel Fraad, New York, 1955 (acquired from the above; sold: Sotheby's, New York, December 1, 2004, lot 10, illustrated)
Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Private Collection, Massachusetts
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 2009

New York, Alfredo Valente Gallery, Marsden Hartley, September-November 1960, no. 16
Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Museum; Andover, Massachusetts, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, American Painting: Selections from the Collection of Daniel and Rita Fraad, June-November 1964, no. 65, p. 76, illustrated p. 77 

Volume of Photographs of Paintings, Pastels and Drawings from the Estate of Marsden Hartley, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., no. 198, illustrated

Marsden Hartley painted Storm Wave between 1939 and 1940, more than two years after he returned to his native state of Maine after having spent many years living and working throughout the United States in Europe in places such as Taos, New Mexico and Berlin, Germany. His decision to remain in Maine was in part motivated by the critical response that his work was not truly American in character. Eager to repatriate himself as an American painter, he sought to tether himself physically and artistically to the land of his birth. He settled in Georgetown and drew solace and inspiration from the stark, rocky coastal landscape unique to this environment.

Hartley’s preoccupations in this period align him with many of the ideals central to Regionalism, the proponents of which viewed the landscape as an essential component of the American identity. As Barbara Haskell explains, “By then, Hartley was back in his native Maine and was claiming the region’s severity and rugged simplicity as his personal subject…. Convinced that one’s entire physical being–‘the whole body, the whole flesh’–must be put into action when painting, Hartley abandoned elegance and refinement in favor of raw immediacy, deliberately simplifying for the sake of emotional expression” (The American Century: Art & Culture 1900-1950, New York, 1999, p. 204).

In works from the period such as Storm Wave, Hartley utilizes the expressive, undeniably masculine aesthetic that he cultivated throughout his career to convey the power he saw in his native landscape. He renders the shore and water as simplified, flattened shapes delineated with heavy contour lines. These static and sculptural forms contrast with the vigorous brushwork and thick application of paint he employs to portray the turbulent sea. Like the best of his work, Hartley’s interpretation imbues the landscape with a vital and dynamic presence, ultimately imparting to the viewer an experience of the power of the natural world.