MARSDEN HARTLEY | Still Life

Private collection, 1928 (acquired directly from the artist)
By descent to the present owner

New York, Berry-Hill Galleries, The Heart of the Matter: The Still Lifes of Marsden Hartley, May-June 2003, pp. 52, 160, illustrated pl. 19, p. 99

The canvas is lined and the tacking edges are trimmed. There appears to be frame abrasion at the extreme edges and scattered surface cracking in the areas of thicker impasto with a few small associated losses at lower right. Under UV: there is inpainting to address frame abrasion at extreme edges and a few scattered dots primarily in the background.
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William V. Griffin, a New York banker, who met Marsden Hartley through mutual friends established a syndicate in 1924 “with his business associates James Imbrie, James Vincent Forrestal, and Judge George Carden, which provided Hartley with $2,000 a year for four years in exchange for ten paintings a year.  The group received at least ten still lifes from Hartley, including Beve Poco, Ivy and Fruits, Fruit and Tumbler, Anemones in White Vase, and the present work.  Each member contributed $500 a year and drew lots for the paintings.  The money was paid quarterly, and the ten paintings were due at the end of each fiscal year.  Griffin had originally offered the funds without any strings attached, but Hartley felt morally uncomfortable with this arrangement” (Bruce Weber, The Hart of the Matter: The Still Lifes of Marsden Hartley, New York, 2003, pp. 51-52).  Hartley was unable to meet the first deadline in 1925 and instead delivered 20 paintings in July 1926.  He again missed the 1927 deadline, delivering the final works in 1928 and 1929. Still Life, painted in 1925-26, was acquired as part of this syndicate and has been in the collection of the same family since 1928. 

This painting is included in Gail R. Scott’s Marsden Hartley Legacy Project.