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Marsden Hartley collection

 Collection
Call Number: YCAL MSS 578

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of writings, correspondence, photographs, and other materials documenting the personal and professional affairs of Modernist-era painter Marsden Hartley. Writings contain notes and drafts, autograph and typescript, for numerous writings, chiefly essays. Correspondence is spread out over the many groupings in the collection and features large files of outgoing letters to Norma Berger, Hartley's niece, Carl Sprinchorn, and Adelaide S. Kuntz, as well as incoming letters from artists, writers, cultural figures, and institutions. Correspondents include Hart Crane, Robert McAlmon, Henry Miller, Marianne Moore, Arnold Ronnebeck, Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones, Gertrude Stein, Alfred Stieglitz, Carl Van Vechten, William Carlos Williams, and Edmund Wilson. There are also third-party letters between Berger and others concerning Hartley's work. Other materials include photographs, three oil paintings by Hartley, notebooks, and objects.

Dates

  • 1885-1978

Creator

Language of Materials

Chiefly in English; some materials in Spanish and German.

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

37 (cold storage): Restricted fragile material. For further information consult the appropriate curator.

Existence and Location of Copies

Some material available on microfilm.

Conditions Governing Use

Some materials created by Marsden Hartley are in the public domain. Copyright status for other collection materials is not known to the library. Yale cannot comment on whether or not specific Hartley works are in the public domain. Public domain status for Hartley materials depends on several factors, including if and when paintings were bought and sold (i.e., rights were transferred), whether images were published, and whether Hartley or paintings’ owners registered copyright at some time. Please refer to Cornell University Library’s Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States for detailed information on how to determine whether a work is in the public domain. Yale will claim no control over the copyright to works by Hartley, whether or not their copyright was previously controlled by Yale.

Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. You will find additional general information and resources about copyright online here: Copyright: The Least You Need to Know. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. 

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Acquired chiefly through gifts from Norma Berger, 1950-1978, with additional material from other sources, 1952-2005.

Arrangement

Organized into fourteen groupings: 1950 Acquisition, Undated Acquisition, 1952-1953 Acquisitions, 1956-1976 Acquisitions, 1967 Acquisition, 1976 Acquisitions, 1978 Acquisition, Undated Acquisition, 1983 Acquisition, 1988 Acquisition, 1988 Acquisition, 1989 Acquisition, 2003 Acquisition, and 2005 Acquisition.

Associated Materials

Printed materials cataloged separately at Za H255 +1.

Extent

12.37 Linear Feet ((36 boxes) + 1 object, 1 cold storage)

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.hartley

Abstract

The collection consists of writings, correspondence, photographs, and other materials documenting the personal and professional affairs of Modernist-era painter Marsden Hartley. Writings contain notes and drafts, autograph and typescript, for numerous writings, chiefly essays. Correspondence is spread out over the many groupings in the collection and features large files of outgoing letters to Norma Berger, Hartley's niece, Carl Sprinchorn, and Adelaide S. Kuntz, as well as incoming letters from artists, writers, cultural figures, and institutions. Correspondents include Hart Crane, Robert McAlmon, Henry Miller, Marianne Moore, Arnold Ronnebeck, Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones, Gertrude Stein, Alfred Stieglitz, Carl Van Vechten, William Carlos Williams, and Edmund Wilson. There are also third-party letters between Berger and others concerning Hartley's work. Other materials include photographs, three oil paintings by Hartley, notebooks, and objects.

Marsden Hartley (1877-1943)

Marsden Hartley, an American modernist painter known for his depictions of the Maine coastline and fishermen, was born on 4 January 1877 in Lewiston Maine. After his family moved from Maine to Cleveland in 1892, Hartley studied art at the Cleveland School of Art (1893-1898), then the New York School of Art, and the National Academy of Design. Hartley moved to Berlin in 1913 and spent much of the next two decades in Europe before returning to the U.S. in 1930 and to Maine in 1937. Hartley died on 2 September 1943 in Ellsworth, Maine.

Biographical information taken from "Hartley, Marsden (1877-1943)." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 15 May 2012.

Separated Materials

The paintings titled "An Abstract Arrangement of American Indian Symbols." "Collection of Numbers, Designs and Letters seen by me at the beginning of the War in Berlin," and "Flaming Pool, Dogtown" from the 1952-1953 Accessions were transferred permanently to the Yale University Art Gallery in 2019.

Processing Information

This collection received a basic level of processing, including rehousing and in some instances minimal organization upon acquisition. Further organization and description was carried out in 2012 on Hartley material received by the library between 1950 and 1978. In 2014-2015, other, chiefly later acquisitions of Hartley material were added to the collection. Descriptive information found in the Collection Contents section is drawn in large part from information supplied with the collection and from an initial survey of the contents. Folder titles appearing in the contents list below are often based on those provided by the creator or previous custodian. Titles have not been verified against the contents of the folders in all cases. Otherwise, folder titles are supplied by staff during initial processing.

This finding aid may be updated periodically for revisions in arrangement and description.

Former call numbers: Za Hartley, Za Sprinchorn, Uncat Za File 28, Uncat Za Ms 67, Uncat Za Ms 75, and Uncat MSS 570.

Title
Guide to the Marsden Hartley Collection
Status
Under Revision
Author
by Beinecke staff
Date
February 2012
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository

Contact:
P. O. Box 208330
New Haven CT 06520-8330 US
(203) 432-2977

Location

121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Opening Hours

Access Information

The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.