Marsden Hartley American, 1877-1943
Gardener's Gloves and Field Implements, 1937–38
Oil on canvas board
17⅞ x 24 inches
45.4 x 61 cm
45.4 x 61 cm
This work is included in Gail R. Scott’s Marsden Hartley Legacy Project: Complete Paintings and Works on Paper with Bates College Museum of Art. Painted in Georgetown, Maine, Gardener’s Gloves...
This work is included in Gail R. Scott’s Marsden Hartley Legacy Project: Complete Paintings and Works on Paper with Bates College Museum of Art.
Painted in Georgetown, Maine, Gardener’s Gloves and Field Implements belongs to Marsden Hartley’s “Glove Series,” a group of still lifes drawn from the garden and domestic life of Gaston and Isabel Lachaise at Robin Hood Cove. In contrast to the refined femininity of Hartley's paintings of ladies gloves, the present work focuses on sturdy work gloves and field tools—objects associated with labor, cultivation, and the seasonal routines of coastal Maine. Hartley arranges these forms parallel to the picture plane, compressing space and emphasizing their clarity and solidity, reinforced by his strong use of black contour and richly painted ground.
Like other works in the series, the painting operates as an “object portrait,” conveying human presence indirectly through personal effects. Hartley’s pared-down approach—isolating humble forms and presenting them without embellishment—aligns with his broader interest in treating modest subjects as self-contained and universal. In this way, the gloves and tools evoke both the specific context of the Lachaise garden and broader themes of memory, labor, and human presence, showing how Hartley transformed ordinary objects into meaningful symbols.
Provenance
The artist; to[Hudston Walker Gallery, New York, 1938]; to
Jane Kendall Mason Hamilton Abell (later Ginrigh), Paoli, Pennsylvania, by 1944-1983; by bequest to
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1983 until the present
Exhibitions
Hudson D. Walker Gallery, New York, Marsden Hartley: Recent Paintings of Maine, February 28-April 2, 1938, no. 6, as Gardner's Gloves and ImplementsCarlen Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Marsden Hartley, September 6-30, 1938, no. 10, as Gardner's Gloves and Implements
Museum of Modern Art, New York; Lawrence Art Museum, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts; University of Texas, Austin; Taylor Museum, Colorado Springs, Colorado; San Francisco Museum of Art, California; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; MacMurray College, Jacksonville, Illinois; Arts Club of Chicago, Illinois; and the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1944-1946, pp. 80, illus., 92, as Gardener's Gloves and Implements
Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, The Heart of the Matter: The Still-Lifes of Marsden Hartley, May-June 2003, pp. 70, 161, pl. 46, p. 98, illus. in color, as Gardener's Gloves and Implements
Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York, Seven Americans: Demuth, Dove, Hartley, Marin, O'Keeffe, Stieglitz, Strand, September-October, 2012, illus. in color, pl. 7
Literature
Hudson Walker, "Marsden Hartley," Kenyon Review, Spring 1947, p. 258, as The Gardener's Gloves and ImplementsIsabel Stevenson and Kate M. Monro, Index to Reproductions of American Paintings: A guide to pictures occurring in more than eight hundred books, New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1948, p. 286, as Gardener's Gloves and Implements
Elizabeth McCausland, Elizabeth McCausland Papers, 1838-1995, bulk 1920-1960. Series 6: Marsden Hartley, 1900-1964 (Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.), 15.36.2 datasheet, as Gardener's Gloves and Implements
Bruce Weber, The Heart of the Matter: The Still Lifes of Marsden Hartley, New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., 2003, p. 70
Carol Troyen, Seven Americans: Equivalence in American Modernism, New York: Bruce Silverstein Gallery, 2012
Elizabeth Broun, "Marsden Hartley at Auction," American Art Collecting and Connoisseurship, London and New York: Merrell Publishers Limited, 2020, p. 71, illus. in color, fig. 4
Emily Landry, "Student Blog: Museum of Modern Art," CAS News, Newark, Delaware, November 7, 2024, illus. in color
