Donna M. Cassidy, Elizabeth Finch, and Randall R. Griffey, “Marsden Hartley’s Maine” (Yale UP, 2017)

Marsden Hartley’s Maine (Yale University Press, 2017), published to accompany a major exhibition of his work organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Colby College Museum of Art, traces the artist’s complex relationship to his native state. Essays examine Hartley’s negotiation of various identities including that of the American individualist, the native son, and the avant garde Modernist. Hartley’s literary work and interests in the Green Acre Transcendentalist community are also discussed. The book reveals how in his quest to serve as “the painter from Maine,” Hartley contended with the legacies of depictions of the region by earlier American painters, as well as questions of the role of technology on the landscape among others. The book features a chapter on new studies of Hartley’s materials and techniques that provide insight into his artistic process. An extensive Chronology that situates events in Hartley’s career amidst socio-cultural and historical events is included.

Kirstin L. Ellsworth has a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Indiana University (2005) and currently is an Assistant Professor of Art History at California State University Dominguez Hills. She can be reached at kellsworth@csudh.edu.

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