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Since I went back to Maine and have drawn the power of
Maine’s force and grandeur to me I have taken
another spurt and my glory has become localized which
delights me beyond words—as everyone knows
of me in Maine now and is so kind and welcoming—
the State of Maine itself having sent me a
letter of “official” recognition as Maine’s #1 artist—
and I am so proud of that. [1]
Remaining true to form, Hartley continued to move from place to place, taking side trips to New York and Boston, and living at times in such places as Georgetown, Bangor, Portland, Corea, and Vinalhaven. His existence was typically spartan; for instance, while at Vinalhaven from July to November 1937, he lived on one dollar a day. Like his disillusionment with the Native Americans who no longer lived in teepees, Maine was not the romantic idyll he had pictured, and was well past its prime as a dominant force in the shipbuilding, lumbering, and fishing industries. Hartley was, in fact, disgruntled by the region’s turn toward tourism: “New England has joined the circus… she is swinging on the trapeze of modern commerce, showing herself off at so much a turn.” [2] He did, however, derive great inspiration from the landscape of the rocky coast and Mount Katahdin and from the artists who preceded him.
End of Storm, Vinalhaven, Maine is a strong muscular painting that pulsates with the crashing rhythms of the sea. Rocks whose shapes are outlined in black run as a border across the lower foreground and contrast with the white foam above them. The middle-ground is dominated by the rugged cliff that meets the sea, and behind the cliff is a stand of dark pine trees. In the vista to the left, in a lavender-blue sea touched with white, are two small dark islands on the horizon. A round gray cloud hovers above. In concert with the bold forms, the paint handling is rough and visible, typical of Hartley’s late paintings, and made possible by the fact that the support here is a board, which resisted his powerful brushwork. His initials, M H, appear prominently in the lower right.
Vinalhaven is located on a sparsely populated island fifteen miles off the shore of Maine near Rockland and was first inhabited five thousand years ago. It is known for its quarries of high quality granite, which was shipped great distances for customhouses and post offices throughout the East. A thriving lobster industry is also based on Vinalhaven.
Hartley had painted storms and gloomy landscapes early in his career under the influence of Albert Pinkham Ryder, whom he had met in 1909, and whose dark and moody painting Midnight Marine left a lasting impression. “It was a picture that so affected me that I in truth was never the same after the first moment,” he wrote in his autobiography. In particular, the elemental forms and heavy paint application in End of Storm, Vinalhaven, Maine show Hartley’s debt to Ryder. During his last years in Maine, Hartley had to contend with the reputation of another great sea painter, Winslow Homer. Hartley not only admired and to some extent emulated Homer’s frugal lifestyle, but he was also inspired by the older artist’s renditions of the sea. “I have always been proud as a Yankee, that Homer’s inspiration and his sense of dramatic nature were derived chiefly from my own native rocks, at Prout’s Neck.” [3]
Notes:
[1] Hartley to Norma Berger, April 16, 1940, quoted in Donna M. Cassidy, “Localized Glory: Marsden Hartley as New England Regionalist,” in Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Marsden Hartley (Hartford, CT: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, New Haven, CT: 2002), 175.
[2] Hartley, “New England on the Trapeze,” Creative Arts 8 (February 1931), 57–58, quoted in Donna M. Cassidy, Marsden Hartley: Race, Region and Nation (Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire, published by the University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH, 2005), 289.
[3] Hartley, Somehow a Past: The Autobiography of Marsden Hartley ed. Susan Ryan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), 67, and Hartley, “New England Painting and Painters,” unpublished manuscript, Hartley papers, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, quoted in Cassidy, “Localized Glory,” 181.
ProvenanceBarbara B. Millhouse, New York. [1]
Notes:
[1] Loan Agreement.
Exhibition History1998
Seeking the Spiritual: The Paintings of Marsden Hartley
Ackland Art Museum of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Raleigh, NC (1/25/1998-3/29/1998)
Babcock Galleries, New York, NY (4/20/1998-6/20/1998)
2009
Steiglitz Circle: Beyond O'Keeffe
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (6/6/2009-11/15/2009)
2021-2022
The O'Keeffe Circle: Artist as Gallerist and Collector
Reynolda House Museum of American Art (9/10/2021-3/3/2021)
Published ReferencesMaglaras, Michael (Director), Cleophas and His Own (217 Films: 2005).
Townsend, Luddington. Seeking the Spiritual: The Paintings of Marsden Hartley. Chapel Hill, NC: Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, New York: Babcock Galleries, and Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
DepartmentCollection of Barbara B. Millhouse
End of Storm, Vinalhaven, Maine
Artist
Marsden Hartley
(1877 - 1943)
Date1937-1938
Mediumoil on academy board
DimensionsFrame: 32 3/8 × 36 3/8 in. (82.2 × 92.4 cm)
Canvas: 24 1/2 × 28 1/2 in. (62.2 × 72.4 cm)
SignedMH
Credit LineCourtesy of Barbara B. Millhouse
CopyrightPublic Domain
Object numberIL2003.1.16
DescriptionMarsden Hartley’s return to his natal state, Maine, in 1937 coincided with his sixtieth birthday, the end of the Great Depression, and the rise of American Regionalism. Although he did not have fond memories of his childhood there, Hartley found the state hospitable, as he explained in a letter to his niece:Since I went back to Maine and have drawn the power of
Maine’s force and grandeur to me I have taken
another spurt and my glory has become localized which
delights me beyond words—as everyone knows
of me in Maine now and is so kind and welcoming—
the State of Maine itself having sent me a
letter of “official” recognition as Maine’s #1 artist—
and I am so proud of that. [1]
Remaining true to form, Hartley continued to move from place to place, taking side trips to New York and Boston, and living at times in such places as Georgetown, Bangor, Portland, Corea, and Vinalhaven. His existence was typically spartan; for instance, while at Vinalhaven from July to November 1937, he lived on one dollar a day. Like his disillusionment with the Native Americans who no longer lived in teepees, Maine was not the romantic idyll he had pictured, and was well past its prime as a dominant force in the shipbuilding, lumbering, and fishing industries. Hartley was, in fact, disgruntled by the region’s turn toward tourism: “New England has joined the circus… she is swinging on the trapeze of modern commerce, showing herself off at so much a turn.” [2] He did, however, derive great inspiration from the landscape of the rocky coast and Mount Katahdin and from the artists who preceded him.
End of Storm, Vinalhaven, Maine is a strong muscular painting that pulsates with the crashing rhythms of the sea. Rocks whose shapes are outlined in black run as a border across the lower foreground and contrast with the white foam above them. The middle-ground is dominated by the rugged cliff that meets the sea, and behind the cliff is a stand of dark pine trees. In the vista to the left, in a lavender-blue sea touched with white, are two small dark islands on the horizon. A round gray cloud hovers above. In concert with the bold forms, the paint handling is rough and visible, typical of Hartley’s late paintings, and made possible by the fact that the support here is a board, which resisted his powerful brushwork. His initials, M H, appear prominently in the lower right.
Vinalhaven is located on a sparsely populated island fifteen miles off the shore of Maine near Rockland and was first inhabited five thousand years ago. It is known for its quarries of high quality granite, which was shipped great distances for customhouses and post offices throughout the East. A thriving lobster industry is also based on Vinalhaven.
Hartley had painted storms and gloomy landscapes early in his career under the influence of Albert Pinkham Ryder, whom he had met in 1909, and whose dark and moody painting Midnight Marine left a lasting impression. “It was a picture that so affected me that I in truth was never the same after the first moment,” he wrote in his autobiography. In particular, the elemental forms and heavy paint application in End of Storm, Vinalhaven, Maine show Hartley’s debt to Ryder. During his last years in Maine, Hartley had to contend with the reputation of another great sea painter, Winslow Homer. Hartley not only admired and to some extent emulated Homer’s frugal lifestyle, but he was also inspired by the older artist’s renditions of the sea. “I have always been proud as a Yankee, that Homer’s inspiration and his sense of dramatic nature were derived chiefly from my own native rocks, at Prout’s Neck.” [3]
Notes:
[1] Hartley to Norma Berger, April 16, 1940, quoted in Donna M. Cassidy, “Localized Glory: Marsden Hartley as New England Regionalist,” in Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Marsden Hartley (Hartford, CT: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, New Haven, CT: 2002), 175.
[2] Hartley, “New England on the Trapeze,” Creative Arts 8 (February 1931), 57–58, quoted in Donna M. Cassidy, Marsden Hartley: Race, Region and Nation (Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire, published by the University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH, 2005), 289.
[3] Hartley, Somehow a Past: The Autobiography of Marsden Hartley ed. Susan Ryan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), 67, and Hartley, “New England Painting and Painters,” unpublished manuscript, Hartley papers, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, quoted in Cassidy, “Localized Glory,” 181.
ProvenanceBarbara B. Millhouse, New York. [1]
Notes:
[1] Loan Agreement.
Exhibition History1998
Seeking the Spiritual: The Paintings of Marsden Hartley
Ackland Art Museum of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Raleigh, NC (1/25/1998-3/29/1998)
Babcock Galleries, New York, NY (4/20/1998-6/20/1998)
2009
Steiglitz Circle: Beyond O'Keeffe
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (6/6/2009-11/15/2009)
2021-2022
The O'Keeffe Circle: Artist as Gallerist and Collector
Reynolda House Museum of American Art (9/10/2021-3/3/2021)
Published ReferencesMaglaras, Michael (Director), Cleophas and His Own (217 Films: 2005).
Townsend, Luddington. Seeking the Spiritual: The Paintings of Marsden Hartley. Chapel Hill, NC: Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, New York: Babcock Galleries, and Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Status
Not on view