Provenance
Alfred Stieglitz Collection; given to the Art Institute of Chicago by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1949.
Accession Number
65920
Medium
Oil on composition board
Dimensions
61 × 50.8 cm (24 × 20 1/16 in.)
Classification
oil on panel
Credit Line
Alfred Stieglitz Collection
Background & Context
Background Story
Marsden Hartley's Provincetown (1916) is an oil on composition board painting from a crucial period in the artist's career. Hartley (1877-1943) was an American modernist painter who was associated with the Stieglitz circle and was influenced by German Expressionism. This painting of Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Hartley spent time, shows the town and harbor rendered with the bold colors and simplified forms characteristic of his style. The palette is vivid, the forms are reduced to essential shapes, the composition is dynamic.
Cultural Impact
Hartley was a pioneering American modernist whose work synthesized European Expressionism with American subjects.
Why It Matters
This view of Provincetown captures the coastal town with Hartley's bold colors and simplified forms, the composition conveying the energy of the seaside.
