Fun Facts Friday: Mardsen Hartley

Mardsen Hartley (4 January, 1883 – 2 September, 1943) was a writer, poet, and a prominent American Modernist painter.

Books by, or about, Mardsen Hartley*
Image: Maria Vivat / Getty Images

1. Born as Edmund Hartley in Lewiston, Maine to English immigrants. He was the youngest of nine children.
2. His mother died when he was eight years old, and his father remarried four years later to Martha Marsden. Mr. Hartley took on Marsden as his first name in his early twenties.
3. After a childhood of moving around, Mr. Hartley finally started to study paintings at the New York School of Art.
4. In 1908 Mr. Hartley moved to an abandoned farm near Lovell, Maine.
5. In 1909 he had his first solo exhibition at 291, an internationally noted art gallery in Midtown Manhattan (291 Fifth Ave.).
6. Upon traveling to Europe in 1912, Mr. Hartley was introduced to a circle of writes and artists in Paris with the help of Gertrude Stein.
7. From Paris the artist moved to Berlin, and was a German sympathizer even after World War I.
8. In 1923, Mr. Hartley’s book Twenty-five Poems was published in Paris.
9. Towards the end of his life, Mr. Hartley fell in love with Alty Mason, a fisherman. The couple were together until Mason drowned at sea.
10. Living in a fishing community on East Point Island, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia the artist finally found the peace, love, and family he has been craving since childhood.

Books by, or about, Mardsen Hartley*

Zohar — Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affiliate account