Himmel

Artist Marsden Hartley (American, 1877 - 1943)

Dateca. 1914-1915

MediumOil on canvas with artist-painted wood frame

DimensionsUnframed: 47 1/4 × 47 3/8 inches (120.02 × 120.33 cm)
Framed (artist's painted frame): 49 9/16 × 49 9/16 × 2 inches (125.89 × 125.89 × 5.08 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Friends of Art

Object number56-118

SignedNone

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionBright blue, red, yellow, green, and white medallion and trumpet forms; on blue oblong, upper left, "himmel" in yellow script; lower right, red equestrian monument within yellow square.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Photo-Secession Galleries, New York, Paintings by Marsden Hartley, 2–22 April 1916, no cat.;

Museum of Modern Art, New York, Lyonel Feininger, Marsden Hartley, 24 October 1944–14 January 1945, unnumbered;

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Pioneers of Modern Art in America, 9 April–19 May 1946, no. 50;

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, September–November 1947;

Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York, Paintings by Marsden Hartley, 16 April–12 May 1951, no. 1;

Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Museum of Art, Utica, N.Y., Paintings by Hartley, Knaths, and Rattner, 6–27 November 1955, no cat.;

Newark Museum, N.J., Abstract Art, 1910 to Today, 27 April–10 June 1956, no. 29;

William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mo., Some Points of View in Modern Painting, 10 February–10 March 1957, no. 15;

William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mo., Aspects of Representation in Contemporary Art, 8 February–8 March 1959, no cat.;

Marsden Hartley/John Marin, La Jolla Museum of Art, CA, February 12–March 27, 1966, no. 6.

Marsden Hartley, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 4, 1980–January 4, 1981, no. 26.

50 Years of Collecting: The Friends of Art at the Nelson, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 15, 1984–January 15, 1985, no cat.

Ich und die Stadt: Mensch und Grossstadt in der deutschen Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Berlinische Galerie, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, West Germany, August 15–November 22, 1987, no. 67.

Marsden Hartley: Six Berlin Paintings, 1913–1915, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York, September 3–23, 1992, unnumbered.

Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Saint Louis Art Museum; and Toledo Museum of Art, OH, October 8, 1995–September 22, 1996 (traveled), unnumbered.

Marsden Hartley, Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, January 17, 2003–January 11, 2004 (traveled), no. 13.

Marsden Hartley—The German Paintings, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany, April 5– June 29, 2014; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, August 3–November 30, 2014.

World War I and American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, November 4, 2016 – April 9, 2017.

Gallery Label

Marsden Hartley's Himmel appears like a night display of fireworks translated into paint on canvas and across the frame. The composition's overlapping, abstract, colorful shapes are rooted in French Cubism's motifs and palette. The concentric discs floating across the painting reveal Hartley's knowledge of American Indian design. They also may relate to cockades that decorated the German military uniforms that Hartley saw while living in Berlin at the onset of World War I. The German words for heaven (Himmel) and hell (Hölle) frame two conical shapes that resemble Zuckertuete, colorful bags of candy given to German schoolchildren. Combining childhood themes with military references, Hartley suggests that war is a kind of game that may end in salvation or damnation.

Provenance

To estate of the artist, 1943;

(Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York, by July 1945);

To The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1956.

Published References

“The Martial Spirit of Marsden Hartley,” American Art News 14 (April 8, 1916), 9.

Charles Caffin, “Latest Work by Marsden Hartley,” New York American, April 17, 1916, 8.

Robert J. Cole, “Marsden Hartley’s Heraldic Devices,” Evening Sun (New York), April 25, 1916, 13.

Dorothy Miller, ed., Lyonel Feininger, Marsden Hartley, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1944), 91.

Pioneers of Modern Art in America, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1946), 22.

Paintings by Marsden Hartley, exh. cat. (New York: Rosenberg & Co., 1951), unpaginated.

L[arry] C[ampbell], “Reviews and Previews: Marsden Hartley,” Art News 50 (May 1951), 42.

“Nationwide Notes,” Arts 30 (June 1956), 8–9.

Bob Sanford, “Friends of Art to Vote in Choosing Paintings,” Kansas City Star, October 28, 1956, 6F.

William H. Gerdts, Abstract Art, 1910 to Today, exh. cat. (Newark, N.J.: Newark Museum, 1956), 8.

“Recent Accessions,” Gallery News (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 24 (January 1957), unpaginated.

“Reviews and Previews,” Art News 50 (May 1957), 42.

Patrick Kelleher, Some Points of View in Modern Painting, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1957), unpaginated.

Patrick J. Kelleher, “Aspects of Representation in Contemporary Art—An Exhibition,” Bulletin (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 2 (March 1959), 14.

“Art from the Convention City,” Journal of the American Association of University Women 53 (October 1959), 36.

Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 145, 149, 256.

Marsden Hartley/John Marin, exh. cat. (La Jolla, Calif.: La Jolla Museum of Art, 1966), unpaginated, pl. 6.

Ellen Goheen, “From Romanticism to Pop,” Apollo 96 (December 1972), 546.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 199, 252.

Roxana Barry, “The Age of Blood and Iron: Marsden Hartley in Berlin,” Arts Magazine 54 (October 1979), 168, 171.

Barbara Haskell, Marsden Hartley, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1980), 44, 49, 214;

Eberhard Roters and Bernhard Schulz, eds., Ich und die Stadt: Mensch und Grossstadt in der deutschen Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, exh. cat. (Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Beuermann, in association with Berlinische Galerie, 1987), 396.

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1988), 128–29.

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991)

, 164–66.

Gail Levin, Marsden Hartley: Six Berlin Paintings, 1913–1915, exh. cat. (New York: Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, 1992), 12, 26–27.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6^th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 55, 245.

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 1933–1993 (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 74.

Fargo (N.D.) Forum, February 26, 1995, C1.

Kathryn C. Johnson, ed., Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, exh. cat. (New York: Hudson Hills Press,
1995), 138.

Bruce Robertson, Marsden Hartley (New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with the National Museum of American Art, 1995), 66–67.

“Coming to the Nelson-Atkins in 2003,” Calendar of Events (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), December 2002, 8.

Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, ed., Marsden Hartley, exh. cat. (Hartford, CT: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, in association with Yale University Press, 2002), 27, 51, 65, 292.

Benjamin Genocchio, “An Artist’s Restless Search for Love, and a Place in the World,” New York Times, February 2, 2003, 11.

New York Review of Books 50 (February 27, 2003), 4, cover.

James Panero, “Marsden Hartley and American Modernism,” New Criterion 21 (March 2003), 52.

Michael O’Sullivan, “Phillips Show Eyes Hartley from Every Angle,” Washington Post, June 20, 2003, T50.

Randall Griffey, “Marsden Hartley (1877–1943): American Painter,” Calendar of Events (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), September–October 2003, 3.

Mindie Paget, “The Painter from Maine: Retrospective Focuses on Wandering Artist Who Went Unappreciated during His Lifetime,” Lawrence (Kans.) Journal-World, October 5, 2003, 3D.

“Critically Acclaimed Hartley Retrospective on View through Jan. 4,” Calendar of Events (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), November–December 2003, 10.

Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, “Marsden Hartley (1887–1943),” American Art Review 15 (2003), 170;

David Rosand, The Invention of Painting in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), xiv, 68, 107.

Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1: 283–87, 2: 121–22.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 175 (repro.).

Dieter Scholz, ed. Marsden Hartley: The German Paintings, 1913–1915, exh. cat. (Berlin: Neue Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2014).

Robert Cozzolino and Anne Classen Knutson, eds. World War I and American Art, exh. cat. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.