Popocatepetl, Spirited Morning-- Mexico
1932
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sam Rose and Julie Walters
Accession Number
2004.30.3
Tags
About this artwork
During his visit to Mexico City in 1932, Marsden Hartley was entranced by the two snow-capped volcanoes, Popocatépetl and Ixtaccihuatl, surrounding the city. He devoted much of his time to studying ancient Aztec and Mayan artifacts and primordial myths of creation. According to legend, a Tlaxcaltecas chief promised the hand of his beautiful daughter Iztacc to the brave warrior Popo. Falsely told that her lover had been killed in battle, the girl died from grief. When the young warrior returned,...
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...