# Marsden Hartley artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/marsden-hartley/
Profile generated: 2026-05-09T21:52:41.539Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1877-01-04
- Death date: 1943-09-02
- Nationality: American
- Movements: American Modernism, Cubism (influenced by)
- Common media: oil painting, pastel, drawing

## About Marsden Hartley

Marsden Hartley (born Edmund Hartley, 1877–1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist whose work moved between bold abstraction and expressive realism over a four-decade career. Born in Lewiston, Maine, he studied at the New York School of Art and the National Academy of Design before joining Alfred Stieglitz's circle at Gallery 291 in New York. Extended stays in Paris and Berlin exposed him to Cubism and German Expressionism, producing his celebrated wartime abstract series of military banners and regimental symbols. After periods in New Mexico, Germany, and France, Hartley returned permanently to Maine in the 1930s, painting powerful seascapes, landscapes, and figure studies until his death in Ellsworth in 1943. His work is held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and numerous other public collections.

## Common works and media

Hartley produced oil paintings on canvas and panel, pastels on paper, ink and graphite drawings, and occasional prints. Common subjects include abstract military-banner compositions from his Berlin years, New Mexico desert landscapes and still lifes, Maine coastal scenes and mountain views, portraits, and figure studies. Works on paper — including pastel landscapes and charcoal figure drawings — appear at auction more frequently than major oils and represent an accessible entry point for collectors.

## Market and appraisal context

Hartley's auction market is anchored by his Berlin-period abstractions (c. 1913–1915), which are the most valuable works at public sale. Late Maine landscapes and New Mexico paintings also appear regularly at auction. Oil paintings on canvas generally command the strongest prices, while pastels, drawings, and works on paper trade at lower levels. Provenance linked to the Stieglitz circle or major museum exhibitions adds measurable premium. Appraisals should weigh period, medium, subject, condition, exhibition history, and catalogue-raisonné verification. Collectors encountering Hartley works should confirm attribution against published scholarship, as attribution questions occasionally arise for lesser-known drawings and studies.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine artist identity research from museum, library-authority, and scholarly sources with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For Marsden Hartley, identity and biographical data are grounded in the Library of Congress Name Authority File, Getty ULAN, VIAF, the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), and the Museum of Modern Art collection records.

## Sources

- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79045444
- RKD — Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/36250
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/2521
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500012910
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/9997024/
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q553259
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsden_Hartley