Lot 20▲
Marsden Hartley(1877-1943)Still Life with Pears 19 1/2 x 24in
Amended
24 May 2017, 10:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$118,750 inc. premium
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Marsden Hartley (1877-1943)
Still Life with Pears
signed 'Marsden Hartley' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
19 1/2 x 24in
Painted in 1925-26.
signed 'Marsden Hartley' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
19 1/2 x 24in
Painted in 1925-26.
Footnotes
Provenance
The artist.
Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York.
Dr. Meyer A. Pearlman.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, gift of the above, 1964.
Private collection, New York, acquired from the above, 2006.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.
Exhibited
Palm Beach, Florida, Society of the Four Arts, Still Life and Flowers: An Exhibition from the Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, January 1973, n.p., no. 26.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, American Abstract Art: A Survey from the Permanent Collection, July 24-October 26, 1975.
Greenvale, New York, C.W. Post Art Gallery, Long Island University, Marsden Hartley 1877-1943, November 6-December 14, 1977, pp. 17, 32, no. 18, illustrated.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, American Art 1920-1945: Part II, Selections from the Permanent Collection, February 15-May 4, 1978.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Tradition and Modernism in American Art: 1900-1930, September 11-November 11, 1979.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, and elsewhere, Marsden Hartley, March 4, 1980-January 4, 1981, pp. 74-75, 221, fig. 74, illustrated.
Stamford, Connecticut, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fairfield County, Modern Still Life, April 22-June 29, 1983.
New York, Babcock Galleries, When Modern Was Modern: 1908-1929, September 17-December 21, 2007, no. 14.
New York, Babcock Galleries, A Moveable Feast: The Modern Still Life 1910-1940, May 29-August 15, 2008.
Greenville, South Carolina, Greenville County Museum of Art, Arlie Kuntz, Marsden Hartley and American Modernism, August 6-September 21, 2014.
New York, Driscoll Babcock Galleries, Art is Long, Life is Short: Marsden Hartley and Charles Kuntz in Aix-en-Provence, January 15-March 7, 2015.
Literature
J. Driscoll and T. Ludington, Charles Philip Kuntz, Marsden Hartley: Arising and Converging in Aix, Greenville, South Carolina, 2014, pp. 85, 99, illustrated.
Still Life with Pears was painted between 1925 and 1926, while the artist was living abroad in Europe. He began 1925 in Paris, steadily working on his New Mexico Recollections paintings, conceived in the few years that proceeded, while also producing a number of still life paintings. In August of that year the artist ventured to the south of France, deciding on the town of Vence, but only for a short while, until in 1926 he found himself back in his cherished city of Aix-en-Provence. Earlier in the year, while briefly back in Paris, Hartley went to a Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) exhibition, one of Hartley's most revered influences, at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery. (G.R. Scott, Marsden Hartley, New York, 1988, pp. 75-76) It can reasonably be assumed that after seeing Cézanne's accomplished paintings, he was inspired to resume his own work in still life.
As it were, in the fall of 1926, Hartley worked primarily on still life painting. Residing in the same city as Cézanne once had, Hartley became obsessed with emulating the successes of his predecessor. Barbara Haskell writes, when referring to Still Life with Pears, "Hartley's third group of paintings from this period, his still lifes—which he regarded as more successful than the landscapes—are composed of solid, stable masses; forms are simplified and outlined with dark contours." She continues to explain that these works "retain their emphasis on stable, distinct forms instead of expressive, sensuous brushstrokes." (B. Haskell, Marsden Hartley, New York, 1980, p. 74)
Saleroom notices
This work will be included in Gail R. Scott's forthcoming publication, Marsden Hartley: The Complete Paintings. Please note that additional provenance and exhibition history has been made available for this work. It has been confirmed that this painting was purchased directly from the artist by Mr. Byrne E. Hackett of New York prior to its acquisition by Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York. While at Bertha Schaefer Gallery, the work was probably exhibited in the show "Hartley / Maurer: Contemporaneous Paintings", from November 13 to December 2, 1950, as no. 3.
