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.

Lewiston, ME. Bates College Museum of Art. Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts (September 20-November 19, 2021); New York. The Vilcek Foundation (September 19, 2022-January 20, 2023).

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.

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