About the Object
An abstracted seascape that includes appropriated references to Native American culture (viewed through a European lens), a bright palette, and an emphasis on pattern and symmetry. A winged sun hangs above a canoe on the water, which includes an abstracted headdress suggesting a figure. Green and red forms rise from the bottom of the composition, set against four rows of water that lighten in color as they reach the canoe. The painting retains its original frame, painted by Hartley.
Additional Information
Schiff is part of Hartley’s Amerika series, which in addition to the small set that includes Berlin Series No. 1, 1913, also comprises at least six large paintings done in 1914–15. The overall composition of Schiff reads as an abstracted and simplified version of Indian Fantasy, 1914, in the North Carolina Museum of Art.
The Artist;
Wolfgang and Charlotte Wachsmuth Harlan, Weimar, Germany, purchased from the artist, April 1915;
Dr. Hans Hasso von Veltheim, Ostrau, Sachsen-Anhalt. Germany, purchased from above before 1929-1945;
The Soviet Military Administration, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, confiscated from owner 1945-1954;
Museum Stiftung Moritzburg, Halle, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, January 1954-2014;
Michael von Busse, Hamburg, Germany by mean of restitution to rightful heir, November 2014;
Private Collection, New England, purchased from above, 2014;
[Jonathan Boos, New York, NY];
Halle, Germany. Moritzburg Museum. 1962.
Halle, Germany. Moritzburg Museum. c. 1985.
Berlin, Germany. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie und Kupferstichkabinett. Expressionisten: Die Avantgarde in Deutschland 1905-1920. September 3–November 16, 1986.
Halle, Germany. Moritzburg Museum. 2003.
Berlin, Germany. Neue Nationalgalerie. Marsden Hartley: The German Paintings, 1913-1915. April 3-June 29, 2014, pp.149-156, 205, ill. p. 94.
Humlebaek, Denmark. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Marsden Hartley. September 19, 2019-January 19, 2020.
Lewiston, ME. Bates College Museum of Art. Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts. September 20-November 19, 2021, pp. 9, 43-51, 100, 106, 147, ill. pp. cover (detail), 42 (detail), 107.
Levin, Gail. “Marsden Hartley’s ‘Amerika’: Between Native American and German Folk Art,” American Art Review, vol. v, no. 2 (Winter 1993).
Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin, ed. Marsden Hartley. New Haven and London: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2003. Exhibition catalogue, p. 84, n2.
Fort, Ilene S. “Hartley’s Spiritual Education and the German Paintings.” In Marsden Hartley: The German Paintings 1913–1915, edited by Dieter Scholz, pp. 104–127. Berlin, Los Angeles, and New York: Neue Nationalgalerie and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2014, mentioned 120–21, as Schiff.
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