Palm Beach Show 2011

Marsden Hartley (American, 1877–1943) Pre-War Pageant , 1913 Oil on canvas, 39½ x 31⅞ inches Collection of Deborah and Ed Shein Painted in 1913, Pre-War Pageant is among the first purely abstract paintings by an American artist. Hartley had sailed for Paris a year earlier and there became interested in spirituality and art theories, including those of Wassily Kandinsky, who believed in the triangle’s spiritual properties. In Berlin in 1913, Hartley began a military-inspired series to which Pre-War Pageant belongs. With its bold use of primary hues and simple geometric forms, Hartley’s canvas pulsates with energy that spills beyond the canvas onto the frame. While in Europe during the teens Hartley maintained his ties to New York, sending pictures back to Alfred Stieglitz to exhibit at his intimate 291 gallery. Recalling the effect of a Hartley exhibition in 1916, Georgia O’Keeffe remarked it was “like a brass band in a small closet.” 20