American artist biography hartley marsden

Marsden Hartley (January 4, - September 2, ) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.

Early life and education

Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine,[1] where his English parents had settled.

He was the youngest of nine children.[2] His mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried four years later to Martha Marsden.[3] His birth name was Edmund Hartley; he later assumed Marsden as his first name when he was in his early 20s.[2]

Hartley began his art training at the Cleveland Institute of Art after his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in [1] He won a scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art.[1]

In , at age 22, Hartley moved to New York City to study painting at the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase, and then attended the National Academy of Design.[1] Hartley was a great admirer of Albert Pinkham Ryder and visited his studio in Greenwich Village as often as possible.

His friendship with Ryder, in addition to the writings of Walt Whitman a