Skip to main contentProvenanceThe artist
Margo Pollins Schab, Inc., New York, New York
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1995
Published References
Marsden Hartley
(American, 1877–1943)
Waxenstein
1933
Lithograph on off-white wove paper
Image: 12 5/8 x 10 1/4 in. (32.1 x 26.0 cm)
Sheet: 14 5/8 x 13 3/8 in. (37.1 x 34.0 cm)
Mat: 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Sheet: 14 5/8 x 13 3/8 in. (37.1 x 34.0 cm)
Mat: 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Credit LineTerra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number1995.36
SignedIn black crayon bottom right beneath image: Marsden Hartley/1933
InterpretationIn September 1933, while he was living in the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps near Munich, Germany, Marsden Hartley sketched the steep, jagged mountain of Waxenstein featured in this lithograph. Drawing parallel strokes in ragged rows across the bottom of the image, he translated the evergreen timberland textures of the lower slopes as subtly rippling dark tones. On the craggy mountain tops, which thrust dramatically upward, he made patches of shading to model the faceted forms and to suggest recesses in the wind-burnished stone and ice. With a black outline he accentuated the lateral left ridge of the central peak against the background mountain; he also reinforced the summit silhouettes against the sky with zigzags and inverted Vs denoting serrated edges at upper right and upper left.
A prolific painter and energetic draftsman, Hartley made few prints. He created his first lithographs, still life images, while living in Berlin in 1923 and returned to the medium in 1933–34 with four more prints, including Waxenstein, that rank among his finest graphic works. In contrast to his earlier interest in flat, semi-abstract arrangements of symbolic forms, exemplified by his colorful Painting No. 50 (TF 1999.61), made in Berlin during World War I, these works are more traditionally representational. However, Waxenstein shares with Painting No. 50 the hierarchical composition and resulting mood of grandeur and powerful drama.
Mountainous scenery in Maine, New Mexico, Mexico, and Europe deeply affected Hartley, who made mountains a recurring subject of his art. His experience of the stark majesty of Bavaria's alpine pinnacles of rock and snow inspired dynamic monochromatic drawings as well as the four lithographs that include Waxenstein. This body of work helped to set the stage for subsequent landscape paintings, notably the now celebrated images of Mount Katahdin in Maine that Hartley created shortly after leaving Germany in 1934.
A prolific painter and energetic draftsman, Hartley made few prints. He created his first lithographs, still life images, while living in Berlin in 1923 and returned to the medium in 1933–34 with four more prints, including Waxenstein, that rank among his finest graphic works. In contrast to his earlier interest in flat, semi-abstract arrangements of symbolic forms, exemplified by his colorful Painting No. 50 (TF 1999.61), made in Berlin during World War I, these works are more traditionally representational. However, Waxenstein shares with Painting No. 50 the hierarchical composition and resulting mood of grandeur and powerful drama.
Mountainous scenery in Maine, New Mexico, Mexico, and Europe deeply affected Hartley, who made mountains a recurring subject of his art. His experience of the stark majesty of Bavaria's alpine pinnacles of rock and snow inspired dynamic monochromatic drawings as well as the four lithographs that include Waxenstein. This body of work helped to set the stage for subsequent landscape paintings, notably the now celebrated images of Mount Katahdin in Maine that Hartley created shortly after leaving Germany in 1934.
Margo Pollins Schab, Inc., New York, New York
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1995
Published References
McCausland, Elizabeth. "The Lithographs of Marsden Hartley." Artist's Proof 3 (Spring 1962): 30–32.
Marsden Hartley: Lithographs and Related Works. (exh. cat., University of Kansas Museum of Art). Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Museum of Art, 1972. No. 14. [Note: This is the first catalogue documenting Hartley's entire print oeuvre: 17 lithographs. For Waxenstein, it cites the impression in the collection of the Art Museum, Princeton University. M. Symmes Survey, 2003]
Eldredge, Charles C. "Marsden Hartley Lithographs." American Art Journal 5:1 (May 1973): 46–53.
One Hundred Prints by 100 Artists of the Art Students League of New York. (exh. cat., Associated American Artists). New York: Associated American Artists, 1975. No. 45, p. 24; ill. p. 78.
Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin, ed. Marsden Hartley. (exh. cat., Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art). Hartford, Connecticut: Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, 2003. Text pp. 309–10; ill. no. 55, 58.
Marsden Hartley: Lithographs and Related Works. (exh. cat., University of Kansas Museum of Art). Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Museum of Art, 1972. No. 14. [Note: This is the first catalogue documenting Hartley's entire print oeuvre: 17 lithographs. For Waxenstein, it cites the impression in the collection of the Art Museum, Princeton University. M. Symmes Survey, 2003]
Eldredge, Charles C. "Marsden Hartley Lithographs." American Art Journal 5:1 (May 1973): 46–53.
One Hundred Prints by 100 Artists of the Art Students League of New York. (exh. cat., Associated American Artists). New York: Associated American Artists, 1975. No. 45, p. 24; ill. p. 78.
Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin, ed. Marsden Hartley. (exh. cat., Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art). Hartford, Connecticut: Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, 2003. Text pp. 309–10; ill. no. 55, 58.