{"id":116303,"date":"2018-06-21T09:22:48","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T13:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=116303"},"modified":"2018-06-22T11:50:11","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T15:50:11","slug":"100k-art-museum-grant-to-benefit-marsden-hartley-holdings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2018\/06\/21\/100k-art-museum-grant-to-benefit-marsden-hartley-holdings\/","title":{"rendered":"$100K Bates art museum grant to benefit Marsden Hartley collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bates College Museum of Art\u2019s purchase of a painting by Marsden Hartley, a major figure in American Modernism, is one of the outcomes of a $100,000 grant to the museum from a foundation in New York City.<\/p>\n

Half of the grant from the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts has helped fund the purchase of \u201cIntellectual Niece,\u201d a late Hartley work depicting his niece Norma Berger.<\/p>\n

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Marsden Hartley depicted in a gelatin silver print made around 1940 by Alfredo Valente, a photographer best-known for his images of Broadway actors and actresses. (Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, Bates College Museum of Art)<\/p><\/div>\n

The purchase dovetails nicely with the museum\u2019s plan for the remainder of the grant, which was approved in February. The $50,000 will fund scholarly documentation of items in the museum’s Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection as part of the development of a fully accessible online catalog of the collection \u2014 a collection made possible by Berger\u2019s generosity.<\/p>\n

The museum’s Hartley collection comprises artwork by Lewiston native Hartley and other notable artists, his personal library, and a treasure trove of his personal effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Horowitz Foundation grant further strengthens a definitive Museum of Art resource,\u201d says museum Director Dan Mills. \u201cThe Hartley Collection, which includes the largest collection of Hartley drawings anywhere, provides unique ways of understanding the life and creative work of an important American artist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Horowitz grant, along with other recent grants, is enabling us to conserve, research, and document the collection, and to make it more accessible. And \u2018Intellectual Niece\u2019 is a significant painting that is important to and a great fit for the collection,\u201d Mills continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gratifying that a leading arts advocate like the Horowitz Foundation shares Bates\u2019 commitment to growing and stewarding this nationally valuable collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIntellectual Niece\u201d was acquired from Nova Scotia residents Chris Huntington and Charlotte McGill. Art collectors and longtime supporters of the museum, \u201cthey have donated significant drawings of Hartley\u2019s, as well as work by other Maine artists,\u201d says museum curator William Low, who works closely with the Hartley Collection.<\/p>\n

(The day after Low spoke to us for this article, he headed to Patten, Maine, to meet the couple and pick up their latest gift, an important donation of more than 75 works by Maine painter and Hartley contemporary Carl Sprinchorn.)<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to acquire \u2018Intellectual Niece,\u2019 is a huge step for the museum,\u201d says Low, \u201cbut it\u2019s also part of a long-term relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

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“Intellectual Niece,” a 1939 oil painting by Marsden Hartley. (Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, Bates College Museum of Art)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIntellectual Niece\u201d is the first significant Hartley painting, as opposed to works in other media, that Bates has acquired. Norma Berger was Hartley\u2019s \u201cmost intimate relative later in life,\u201d Low says. \u201cShe was his favorite correspondent, someone he was very close to.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe frequently sent her gifts from his extensive travels, beginning when she was quite young. She was devoted to him, and the Hartley Collection is here at Bates because of her efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The collection grew from two gifts that followed Hartley’s death in 1943. His heirs gave Bates the remaining effects from his home and studio in Corea, Maine, in 1951. In 1955, Berger made a gift of Hartley artwork including 99 drawings.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, says Low, \u201cHartley was relatively unknown in his hometown. But he had expressed a hope that at some point he\u2019d be recognized as a contributor to American art and his hometown. And Bates was fortunate to receive those gifts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Berger portrait \u201cbrings together some loose ends in the collection. It depicts the person who\u2019s responsible for the collection coming here. It connects with other works in the collection in special ways. We\u2019re really grateful to the Horowitz Foundation for recognizing the importance of those connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIntellectual Niece\u201d represents a transitional time in Hartley\u2019s art. \u201cHe didn\u2019t start painting figurative work until late in his career,\u201d says Low. \u201cThis is a painting from a significant 1939 exhibition that was his first real exhibition devoted to figurative work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been hoping to acquire this painting for years \u2014 this has been my single most important wish-list item literally for 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hartley’s influence remains potent. Just in the past couple of decades, his work has been the focus of high-profile exhibitions in Hartford, Fort Worth, Berlin, Los Angeles, and elsewhere, a string culminating last year with Marsden Hartley’s Maine<\/em>, a landmark show organized and shown by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Colby College Museum of Art.<\/p>\n

And continuing interest in Hartley means continuing interest in the Hartley Collection at Bates. Hartley scholars and aficionados visit campus increasingly often to avail themselves of the resource, says Low. The Hartley aura also attracts artists interested in the possibility of having their work included in the museum\u2019s overall collection, whose roots in the Hartley holdings are evident in Bates\u2019 collecting focus on drawings and works on paper.<\/p>\n

Totaling more than 400 pieces, the collection includes art by Hartley in other media and work from his personal collection by friends and colleagues including Sprinchorn, Mark Tobey, and George Platt Lynes; Coptic, Mexican, and Asian textiles; pre-Columbian objects and Luristan bronzes; photographs; and the artist\u2019s personal library.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been hoping to acquire this painting for years \u2014 this has been my single most important wish-list item literally for 20 years.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In sum, the collection affords unparalleled insights into Hartley\u2019s work, his life, and his times. But fully realizing that value depends on work that will be supported by the Horowitz grant and by grants previously received by the museum from the Henry Luce Foundation and from the Coby Foundation.<\/p>\n

The Horowitz grant focuses on updating scholarship for the various components of the collection, Low explains. The Luce Foundation grant is supporting more \u201cmechanical\u201d aspects of managing and cataloging the collection, such as making digital images of collection items and creating the online database. The Coby grant is funding conservation of the fragile textiles in the collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate goal is an American art resource that will provide easier and more thorough access to the collection online,\u201d Low says. But, he adds, \u201cit is also intended to serve as an means of collection preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is, as interest in Hartley grows, \u201cthe scholarship and online resource will contribute to the long-term care and preservation of the collection by reducing physical handling of fragile artworks and objects.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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