(1877-1943) Marsden Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, a milltown on the Androscoggin River. The youngest of nine children, Hartley moved to Ohio with his family while still a boy. But he was always a "Maine-iac," as his later paintings would reflect.

Hartley studied at the Cleveland School of Art, the New York School of Art, and the National Academy of Design. He experimented with Cubism and abstract art, but returned to a representational style. A young Irish poet, Seumas O'Sheel, brought Hartley to see Alfred Stieglitz, who agreed to give him an exhibition.

Stieglitz financed a trip abroad for Hartley. He stayed in Paris, then went on to Berlin. Hartley loved the night life that city offered, and he became close to European artists, including Wassily Kandinsky. At the end of 1915, Hartley returned to the United States, and spent his time in Provincetown, Greenwich Village, and Bermuda. At the end of World War I, Hartley returned to Europe.

The Depression sent him back to the USA, where he settled in Maine. He stayed there until he died in 1943.

References:
Early American Moderns: Painters of the Stieglitz Group by Mahonri Sharp Young; (1974) Watson-Guptill Publications; New York, NY; pp 16-17
World Book Macintosh Edition; Contributor: Charles C. Eldredge, Ph.D., Hall Distinguished Prof. of American Art, Univ. of Kansas.