A white sea horse centered on a red background.
A white sea horse centered on a red background.

About the Object

This work features a whitish-gray seahorse painted against a brilliant and sketchily painted reddish-orange background. At some point during its creation, Hartley smashed a spider on the surface of the board and simply painted over it.

 

Additional Information

Hartley began painting seashells in the 1920s and created several compositions featuring starfish in the ’30s, including Starfish, 1936, in the Brooklyn Museum.

The Artist;
Estate of the Artist;
[Paul Rosenberg &. Co., New York, c. 1944-45-1959];
Joseph H. Hirshhorn, New York, 1959;
Gift to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 1966;
[Sotheby’s, New York, December 1, 1988, lot 238];
[Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York];
Private Collection, New York;
Private Collection, East Coast;
[Christie’s, New York, December 5, 2013, lot 15];
[The Owings Gallery, Santa Fe, NM];

Rochester, NY. Memorial Art Gallery, and elsewhere. Paintings by Marsden Hartley, October 8-November 2, 1954.

Baltimore. The Baltimore Museum of Art. [ ], November 1954-January 1955.

Montgomery, AL. Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. Animals in Art: A Loan Exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution, January 7-March 31, 1982, cat. no. 11, ill.

New York. Berry-Hill Galleries. The Heart of the Matter: The Still Lifes of Marsden Hartley, May 6-June 27, 2003, cat. no. 9.

New York. The Met Breuer. Marsden Hartley’s Maine (March 15-June 18, 2017); Waterville, ME. Colby College Museum of Art (July 8-November 12, 2017).

Humlebaek, Denmark. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Marsden Hartley. September 19, 2019-January 19, 2020.

Elizabeth McCausland Papers, Correspondence and General Files: H, 1951-1960, Box 16, Folder 33, Frame 14. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Elizabeth McCausland Papers, Catalogue Raisonne Files: Still Life – Oils, [circa 1944-1964], Box 16, Folder 12, Frame 20. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection. Sotheby’s, New York. American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture. December 1, 1988, lot 238.

An East Coast Collection. Christie’s, New York. American Art. December 5, 2013, lot 15.

Related Objects

Synchromist Still Life

c. 1910 Morgan Russell
Round yellow and orange fruits on a background of blues and reds painted with thick brushstrokes.

Three Shells

c. 1941-43 Marsden Hartley
Two small, off-white conch shells below a larger shell on an empty black background.

Roses for Seagulls that Lost Their Way

1935-36 Marsden Hartley
A bouquet of round white roses set against a red background.

Grapes – Berlin

1922/23 Marsden Hartley
A bunch of red and yellow grapes wrapped in brown paper set against a deep red background.

Atlantic Window in the New England Character

c. 1917 Marsden Hartley
A single white calla lily in a vase in front of a window that looks out onto a shoreline filled with sailboats.

Berlin Series No. 1

1913 Marsden Hartley
Abstractions of decorative plants emerge onto a black background around a long triangle that meets at a point inside a red circle.

Indian Pottery

c. 1912 Marsden Hartley
A still life painting featuring an Acoma pot decorated with a bird and leaf designs, a Santa Clara double-spouted jug, a small figure sculpture and a book on a table in front of a red tapestry.

Zia Polychrome Water Jar

c. 1890 Unknown Artist
A Zia pot with a rarely-painted deer in the center surrounded by black and brown patterns.

Schiff

1915 Marsden Hartley
A ship, blue and white waves with four emerging stylized plants, and a yellow sun with symmetrical white wings hovering above.

Bikini, Tour of Inspection

1946 Ralston Crawford
Abstract representation of an atomic bomb blast with overlapping forms in bright colors set against a blue background.

You may also be interested in

October 6, 2020

The Coloring Book of American Modernist Artists

Presenting 30 works of the American Modernist period, ready for you to complete, whether by reproducing the original vibrant palettes or by experimenting and letting your creativity run free.
The Coloring Book of American Modernist Artists
May 11, 2020

Coloring Book Inspired by Marsden Hartley

Join the coloring book craze! Download a coloring book of masterworks by Marsden Hartley from the Vilcek Collection.
Coloring Book Inspired by Marsden Hartley
2017 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Fine Arts

Meleko Mokgosi

Born in Botswana
Meleko Mokgosi receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Fine Arts for paintings that rely on intensive research, reflection, and conversation in order to address widespread misrepresentation of Africa and Africans, and to accurately portray the continent’s complex social and political realities.
Portrait of Meleko Mokgosi