In September of 1936, Marsden Hartley was present during a storm that caused the drowning of Alty and Donny Mason, as well as their cousin, off Eastern Points Island, Nova Scotia. Hartley, who was then 59 years old, had spent time with the Masons during a period of illness and depression. Their company, along with that of Francis Mason, had provided a spark of joy and happiness in the later part of his life, which made their tragic deaths more devastating to the artist.
Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), Give Us This Day, 1938. Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in. Art Bridges, AB.2018.6.
For the next three years, through 1939, Hartley would return to images of the sea and the Masons as he tried to sort out the emotional toll their deaths had taken on him. Some of those works, as well as others about the ocean, are the subject of a new exhibition, Marsden Hartley and the Sea, now open at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine.
“For centuries, the sea has sparked fascination and fear. The works in the exhibition examine that,” says curator Jane Bianco. “Here we ask the question, ‘How is the sea a catalyst for the imagination?’ And we are in a great place to ask that question. We are right on the coast, on the edge of the world, in a fishing community on Maine’s peninsulas. Life has been hard here over the centuries. Some of the images from the show suggest part of that, and some idealize the region.”
Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), Stormy Sea No. 2, 1936. Oil on Academy Board, 121/8 x 16 in. Museum purchase made possible in part by gifts from Mr. Edwin L. Beckwith and Dr. Peter Sheldon, 1983.2.
While the exhibition will feature several key works by other artists, including N.C. Wyeth’s 1933 work Cleaning Fish, the show will largely focus on Hartley and his work created in that three-year window after the tragic accident involving the Mason family. Works in the show include the 1938 painting Give Us This Day, which shows a group of seagulls with three dead fish. The work has a funeral-like quality, which is not lost on many art experts and even casual viewers.
“It has been often thought that the fish are those who died and the seagulls are there to mourn their passing, but many experts have indicated that Hartley didn’t go into too much symbolism, so it is unlikely the painting and the event are linked in that way,” Bianco says. “Still, though, the painting has a very mournful quality. It’s partly because of the muted colors, but also because of the simplified forms in the paintings. As a curator, I like to tell visitors to bring their own life experiences into the gallery. Art has a way of expressing meaning to each one of us differently.”
N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), Cleaning Fish, 1933. Oil on canvas, 475/8 x 51¾ in. Bequest of Betsy James Wyeth Trust, 2021.
Marsden Hartley and the Sea is one third of a trio of unique exhibitions part of the fall lineup at the Farnsworth Art Museum. Andrew Wyeth and performance artist Pope.L are the subjects of the other two. Marsden Hartley and the Sea runs through October 7.
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