Marsden Hartley (b. 1877, d. 1943)

Born in Lewiston, Maine, as Edmund Hartley. In 1893 he moved to Cleveland to join his father and stepmother, Martha Marsden, whose surname he adopted as his first name. Hartley received a scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art in 1898. From 1899 to 1900 he took classes at William Merritt Chase's New York School of Art, and attended the National Academy of Design from 1900 to 1904. In Maine and New York, Hartley painted landscapes and still-lifes that reflect the influence of Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso, artists with whom he became familiar through his studies and contacts in avant-garde circles in New York. Hartley’s broad range of subjects and varied styles reflect not only his changing artistic aims, but also the effects of his numerous travels to Europe, Mexico, Bermuda, and Nova Scotia.