Author Description

Hailed as "America's first great modern painter of the 20th century" and "one of the most intriguing art historical subjects of all time", Marsden Hartley remains relatively unknown to a European audience. This Louisiana presentation marks the first major retrospective exhibition of his work in Europe in over 60 years. The work of the American painter and poet Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) can be regarded as a bridge between European and American modernism. Hartley lived much of his life nomadically between Europe and the USA, and his travels produced a number of profoundly original groups of works from 1906 until 1943. Among these we can count a series of abstract paintings created with a point of departure in military symbols from the horrors of the First World War; desolate, almost surreal landscapes from New Mexico; feminized figure paintings of muscular working men. Exhibition: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (19.09.2019-19.01.2020).