Currently not on view
Taos Mountain,
1918
Marsden Hartley, 1877–1943; born Lewiston, ME; died Ellsworth, ME
2005-99
In the wake of the First World War, Hartley became disillusioned with international European avant-garde movements and abandoned his prewar devotion to abstraction, instead seeking a modern realist style that he felt to be American in nature. In 1918 he traveled to Taos, New Mexico, at the invitation of the legendary patron of the arts Mabel Dodge. He immediately saw the stark, rugged beauty of the American Southwest as symbolic of the strong and essential spirit of his homeland—much as Cézanne had discovered in his own native Provence. Over the next year, Hartley produced a number of paintings and more than forty pastel drawings that capture the brilliant color and harsh light of the landscape around Taos and Santa Fe.
Information
Title
Taos Mountain
Dates
1918
Maker
Medium
Pastel
Dimensions
sheet: 45 × 66.7 cm (17 11/16 × 26 1/4 in.)
frame: 66.8 × 89.5 × 2.5 cm (26 5/16 × 35 1/4 × 1 in.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Edward T. Cone, Class of 1939, Professor of Music 1946-1985
Object Number
2005-99
Place Depicted
United States, New Mexico
Signatures
Signed in graphite, lower right: Marsden Hartley
Inscription
in graphite, lower right above signature: Taos Mountain
in graphite on verso, upper left: 12 [in circle] Taos Mountain | $475
Culture
Type
Materials
Subject
