Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) was an American painter whose finest, most original works depict Maine's rocky shoreline and the fishermen who depend upon the sea for their livelihood.

Marsden Hartley's family left England to settle in Maine, where he was born. His first drawings were inspired by his interest in natural history. He studied on a scholarship at the Cleveland School of Art (1892-1898). Then he went to New York City to study painting under William Merritt Chase and Frank Dumond.

Hartley's earliest paintings after leaving school are impressionist and suggest the influence of the Italian painter Giovanni Segantini, whose work Hartley knew only through reproductions. Alfred Stieglitz gave Hartley his first exhibition at his "291" gallery. The show consisted mostly of "black landscapes," done in the manner of Albert P. Ryder.

In 1912 Hartley traveled to Paris, Munich, and Berlin. Although he experimented with cubism, in Germany he discovered the...