(Lobster on Black Background)
1940-1941
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Henry P. McIlhenny
Accession Number
1978.52
Tags
About this artwork
In 1937, after years of travel, Marsden Hartley returned to his native Maine, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. Inspired by the rugged landscape, he painted images of the coast and surrounding area; Mt. Katahdin, the state's highest peak, features in numerous works. He also created elegant still lifes, floral studies as well as pictures featuring lobster traps, nets, and buoys---the trappings of the fisherman's life---including Lobster on Black Background. Often in ill health, ...
About the Artist
Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) was one of the most significant and searching figures of American modernism, an artist whose restless travels and personal intensity drove him to synthesize European avant-garde currents with a deeply American sensibility rooted in landscape, loss, and spiritual longing. Born in Lewiston, Maine, he studied at the Cleveland School of Art and later at the National Academy...