id: 150530
accession number: 1981.83
share license status: Other
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1981.83
updated: 2021-06-29 06:36:36.365000
Military, 1914-1915. Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943). Oil on canvas; framed: 73.5 x 63.5 x 3.5 cm (28 15/16 x 25 x 1 3/8 in.); unframed: 60.6 x 50.2 cm (23 7/8 x 19 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Professor Nelson Goodman 1981.83
title: Military
title in original language:
series:
series in original language:
creation date: 1914-1915
creation date earliest: 1914
creation date latest: 1915
current location: 226A American Modern
creditline: Gift of Professor Nelson Goodman
copyright:
---
culture: America, 20th century
technique: oil on canvas
department: American Painting and Sculpture
collection: American - Painting
type: Painting
find spot:
catalogue raisonne:
---
CREATORS
* Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943) - artist
---
measurements: Framed: 73.5 x 63.5 x 3.5 cm (28 15/16 x 25 x 1 3/8 in.); Unframed: 60.6 x 50.2 cm (23 7/8 x 19 3/4 in.)
state of the work:
edition of the work:
support materials:
inscriptions:
inscription: signed on reverse of fabric: Marsden Hartley
translation:
remark:
---
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: Year in Review for 1984
opening date: 1985-04-03T04:00:00
Year in Review for 1984. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 3-May 5, 1985).
title: Dictated by Life: Marsden Hartley's German Paintings and Robert Indiana's Hartley Elegies
opening date: 1995-04-14T04:00:00
Dictated by Life: Marsden Hartley's German Paintings and Robert Indiana's Hartley Elegies. Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN (organizer) (co-organizer) (April 14-June 11, 1995); Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, IL (July 1-September 10, 1995); The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL (October 1-December 2, 1995).
title: Made in U.S.A., l'art américain, 1908-1943, entre nationalisme et internationalisme [FRAME]
opening date: 2001-10-05T00:00:00
Made in U.S.A., l'art américain, 1908-1943, entre nationalisme et internationalisme [FRAME]. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, F-33000 Bordeaux, France (organizer) (October 5-December 31, 2001); Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, Rennes, France (January 17-March 31, 2002); Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France (April 10-June 25, 2002).
title: The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art
opening date: 2006-06-09T00:00:00
The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).
---
LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
*
---
PROVENANCE
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
date: 1981-
footnotes:
citations:
Professor Nelson Goodman [1906-1998], Cambridge, MA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
date: Probably 1956-1981
footnotes:
* Goodman purchased the painting directly from Charles Demuth's heir, Robert Locher, and his partner, Richard Weyand.
citations:
Robert Locher [1888-1956], Lancaster, PA, sold to Nelson Goodman
date: 1935-probably 1956
footnotes:
* Locher, Demuth's longtime companion, was the principal beneficiary of his estate. According to Nelson Goodman, the painting had been hanging in the Demuth house in Lancaster, PA, where Locher had resided with his partner, Richard Weyand, since Demuth’s death in 1935. Goodman indicates that he purchased the painting from Demuth's "heirs," Locher and Weyand; however, only Locher was Demuth's heir. It is possible that Weyand should also be included in this provenance: if Goodman bought the painting in 1956 after Locher's death but before Weyand's several months later, than Weyand would have been the owner at the time of the purchase.
citations:
Charles Demuth [1883-1935], Lancaster, PA, by descent to Robert Locher
date: After 1921-1935
footnotes:
* At some point, Charles Demuth, Hartley's close friend, obtained the painting. While Demuth knew Barnes well and often visited him, the exact circumstances surrounding the former's acquisition of the painting are unknown.
citations:
Albert C. Barnes [1872-1951], Philadelphia, PA
date: 1921-
footnotes:
* Barnes purchased this painting, along with three others, at the sale of Hartley's collection on May 10, 1921. Shortly after the auction, Barnes asked Hartley about the possibility of purchasing two more paintings, which Hartley was offering for $350 each. Barnes offered only $50, and Hartley passed the letter to his dealer, Alfred Stieglitz, who never responded. After the incident, Barnes stopped acquiring works by Hartley and eventually removed Military from his collection.
citations:
(Hartley sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, May 10, 1921, as “Pre-War Pageant, 1913," sold to Albert C. Barnes)
date: 1921
footnotes:
* By the spring of 1921, Hartley had become desperately poor, having failed to attract any real following in the United States, and so he was forced to sell off a large portion of his oeuvre at auction.
citations:
Collection of the artist
date: 1914/1915-1921
footnotes:
citations:
---
fun fact:
Hartley was one of the first modern artists to paint abstractions.
digital description:
This abstract portrait is a memorial tribute to a German lieutenant named Karl von Freyburg with whom Hartley had been in love. The artist described von Freyburg’s death as an "unendurable agony," and created a series of deeply personal paintings in response. Here the shapes and color patterns suggest flags, banners, targets, epaulets, and other military paraphernalia.
wall description:
This abstract portrait is a memorial tribute to one of the earliest casualties of the First World War, a German lieutenant named Karl von Freyburg with whom Hartley had been in love. The artist described von Freyburg’s death as an "unendurable agony," and created a series of deeply personal paintings in response. Typical of Hartley’s work of the period, the composition is full of symbols that function like a code to be deciphered. Here the shapes and color patterns suggest flags, banners, targets, epaulets, and other military paraphernalia.
---
RELATED WORKS
---
CITATIONS
Nelson Goodman, letter to Sherman Lee, Dec. 21, 1981, in CMA curatorial file.
page number:
url:
Demuth Dialogue 3.4 (Spring 1985): 2.
page number:
url:
Mark Cole, email to Victoria Sears Goldman and Louis Adrean, Oct. 18, 2013, in CMA curatorial file.
page number:
url:
William Robinson, “Marsden Hartley’s Military,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 76.1 (Jan. 1989): 2-26.
page number:
url:
Nelson Goodman, letter to Sherman Lee, Dec. 21, 1981, in CMA curatorial file.
page number:
url:
Anderson Galleries, Inc. Seventy-Five Pictures by James N. Rosenburg and 117 Pictures by Marsden Hartley. 1921.
page number:
url:
Levin, Gail. "Hidden Symbolism in Marsden Hartley's Military Pictures." Arts Magazine 54, no. 2 (October 1979).
page number: Mentioned: p. 58
url:
Haskell, Barbara. Marsden Hartley. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art in association with New York University Press, 1980.
page number: Reproduced: p. 45, n. 43
url:
"The Year in Review for 1984." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72 (April 1985)
page number: Reproduced: n. 49
url:
Robinson, William H. "Marsden Hartley's Military." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 76 (January 1989)
page number: Mentioned: p. 2, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22; Reproduced: front cover illustration
url:
McDonnell, Patricia. "Indian Fantasy: Marsden Hartley's Myth of Amerika in Expressionist Berlin." North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin XVI (1993)
page number: Mentioned: p. 56; Reproduced: p. 58, no. 9
url:
Chong, Alan. European and American Painting in The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993.
page number: Reproduced: p. 100
url:
Robertson, Bruce. Marsden Hartley. New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1995.
page number: Reproduced: p. 63
url:
French Regional & American Museums Exchange. Made in USA: L'art américain, 1908-1947. Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001.
page number: Reproduced: p. 91
url:
"L’art Américain débarque." Le Magazine: Arts & Spectacles (January 2002)
page number: Reproduced: unpaginated
url:
McDonnell, Patricia. "'Portrait of Berlin': Marsden Hartley and Urban Modernity in Expressionist Berlin." In Marsden Hartley, edited by Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser. New Haven: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2002.
page number: Mentioned: p. 40, 51, 54
url:
Voorhies, James Timothy, ed. My Dear Stieglitz: Letters of Marsden Hartley and Alfred Stieglitz, 1912-1915. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002.
page number: Reproduced: no. 6, unpaginated
url:
McDonnell, Patricia. Painting Berlin Stories: Marsden Hartley, Oscar Bluemner, and the First American Avant-Garde in Expressionist Berlin. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.
page number: Mentioned: p. 97; Reproduced: p. 98, fig. 10
url:
Litt,Steven. "'Geometry' draws us in, yet theme fails to come full circle." The Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 18, 2006.
page number: Reproduced: p. J5
url:
Adams, Henry. Whats American about American Art? A Gallery Tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008.
page number: Mentioned: p. 123; Reproduced: p. 122
url:
Cash, Sarah "Berlin Abstraction." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945, edited by Sarah Cash. Seattle: Marquand Books, Inc., 2011.
page number: Mentioned: p. 211
url:
McDonnell, Patricia, and Michael Plante. Dictated by Life: Marsden Hartley's German Paintings and Robert Indiana's Hartley Elegies. Minneapolis, MN: Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota; New York, NY: Distributed by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, 1995.
page number: Reproduced: pp. 30, 55
url:
Chassey, Eric de. Made in USA: l'art américain, 1908-1943, entre nationalisme et internationalisme. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001.
page number: Reproduced: p. 91
url:
Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.
page number: Mentioned: p. 118, no. 58; Reproduced: pp. 57, 64
url:
---
IMAGES