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Home > Art > Silence of High Noon – Midsummer

Silence of High Noon – Midsummer

Artist

Marsden Hartley

Date

c. 1907-08

Medium

Oil on canvas

Object Type

Painting

Dimensions

H- 30 1/2 x W- 30 1/2 in. (77.5 x 77.5 cm)

Artist's Country of Birth

United States

Collecting Area

American Modernism

Credit Line

The Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection, Promised gift to The Vilcek Foundation

Accession Number

2008.07.01

Copyright

© The Vilcek Foundation

Tags
landscape Maine Mountain painting Tree
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Currently on loan

Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts is on view at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe from April 5-July 25, 2025.

About the Object

In this mountain landscape, the mountain looms large in the background, topped by huge white clouds and held back by a wooden fence that runs the length of the composition. The grassy foreground, defined by patches of different colors, seems to undulate. The green of the grass mirrors the ridge of the mountain. Six trees in full bloom dot the landscape on either side of the fence.

 

Additional Information

In May 1908 Hartley stayed in the Stoneham Valley, where he painted the landscape in his so-called Segantini-stitch brush strokes, inspired by the Italian painter Giovanni Segantini (1858–99). The paint is thickly applied to the surface of the painting, but the brush strokes are small.

The Artist;
[Alfred Stieglitz/Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (291), New York, NY];
Charles Daniel Gallery, New York, NY, c. 1915–1932;
Victor Emmanuel, New York, from above in payment for back rent;
[M. Knoedler & Co., New York, NY, from above, c. 1915-1932];
Private collection, New York, acquired from above and by descent in the family, late 1940s-2008;
[Sotheby’s New York, NY, December 3, 2008, lot 50];
[Owings-Dewey Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM, from above, 2008];

New York, NY. Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (291). Exhibition of Paintings in Oil by Mr. Marsden Hartley of Maine. May 1909, cat. no. 1.

New York, NY. Daniel Gallery. Paintings by Marsden Hartley: The Mountain Series. January-February 9, 1915, cat. no. 17.

New York, NY. The Museum of Modern Art. Marsden Hartley. October 24, 1944-January 14, 1945.

Possibly: Chicago, IL. The Arts Club of Chicago. Marsden Hartley Memorial Exhibition. December 7-31, 1945, cat. no. 3.

Tulsa, OK. Philbrook Museum of Art. From New York to New Mexico: Masterworks of American Modernism from the Vilcek Foundation Collection (February 8-May 3, 2015); Phoenix, AZ. Phoenix Art Museum (June 5-September 6, 2015); Santa Fe, NM. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum (September 25, 2015-January 10, 2016).

Santa Fe, NM. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Extended loan. January-April 2016.

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

Lewiston, ME. Bates College Museum of Art. Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts. September 20-November 19, 2021 pp. 54, 60, 71, 146, ill. pp. 7 (detail), 55.

Santa Fe, NM. New Mexico Museum of Art. Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts. April 5-July 25, 2025.

Caffin, Charles. “Unphotographic Paint – The Texture of Impressionism.” Camera Work 28 (October 1909), pp. 20-23.

Unsigned. “Hartleys in Daniel Gallery.” Press, February 1, 1915, [mentioned].

McCausland, Elizabeth. Elizabeth McCausland papers, 1838-1995, bulk 1920-1960 Series 6: Marsden Hartley, 1900-1964 (Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC), box 13, folder 25, frames 5 & 8.

Ludington, Townsend. Marsden Hartley: The Biography of An American Artist. Boston: Little, Brown, 1992, p. 59, as The Silence of High Noon—Midsummer.

Private Collection. American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture. New York:  Sotheby’s, December 3, 2008. Auction catalogue, pp. 108-111, lot 50, illus. p. 109 and back cover.

Agee, William C. and Lewis Kachur. Masterpieces of American Modernism from the Vilcek Collection. London; New York: Merrell Publishers Limited, 2013, pp. 23, 44–45, 234, 235, 240, 266, illus. pp. 45, 240, fig. 23.

Pochoda, Elizabeth. “Freedom and the abstract truth: Jan and Marica Vilcek’s collection of American modernist art.” The Magazine Antiques (May/June 2013), illus. p. 99.

Lyon, Christopher. “Marsden Hartley’s Maine: His Own Private Germany.” Hyperallergic, April 22, 2017, illus. (color).

Tags
landscape Maine Mountain painting Tree
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