Somehow A Past, by Marsden Hartley an autobiography; read and reviewed by N.H.V.V.

It's about an artist who grew up in Louiston Maine who's mother died when he was eight. He lived in Cleveland for a while and then NYC. There he got to know Edward Steichen and spent a lot of time at his gallery and was nourished by Steichan who saw his promise and made sure that he had enough to eat and encouraged him in his painting and learning. Hartley had the good fortune to get himself to Paris where he became a friend of Gertrude Stein and who's collection of Matisses and Picassos had a huge impact on him and who's circle of friends liked Hartley and encouraged him. The fact that she had written her own memoirs, The Autobiography of Anna B. Tochlas, was a huge model of what he was to attempt in his own autobiography. After Paris, he then spent a great deal of time in Berlin and met expressionist painters, such as Gabriela Muenter, Franz Marc, of the Blaue Reiter group, which had a significant influence on his painting. He was charmed by the masculine style of the military uniforms in parades and the high energy of Berlin at that time before 1933. He returned to NYC where he had stored at least fifty paintings and his friends Steichen and Stiglitz offered to host an auction of his work in their gallery. The auction was a success. He netted $3900, which allowed him to return to Paris where he continued painting and eventually traveled to Florence Italy to devour all the great paintings and sculpture to be seen in that city, went on to Arezzo, then this being the dawn of the Mousalini period, he left Italy for Marseille and the rest of France. His innocence and purity of spirit pervades this book which starts with a long poem and celebrates mountains. It is a celebration of the act of memory which is compared to scaling mountains such as the peaks of the Alps, which continued to be a source of visual ecstasy for Hartley. One of the people who purchased his paintings back in NYC was Dr. Barnes whose collection of paintings from that period is well known. Another collector from Cleveland, Ohio bought his work and left it to the Cleveland Museum, establishing a collection of American artists for that museum. I feel that Hartley is one of the great, original American painters and I'm sure my opinion would be shared by Robert Indiana who has used some of Hartley's imagery in his works. Copyright, 2011 by Nicholas Van Vactor, All Rights Reserved.