Handsome Drinks
Marsden Hartley
American Art
The meaning of the letters in this colorful still life is a mystery, one whose solution may have been intensely personal for Hartley. The letters, and the clean, flat shapes that simultaneously seem to be pasted to the picture plane and register as objects in illusionistic space, recall the Cubist collage aesthetic that Hartley embraced during his stays in Europe. Handsome Drinks is one of the first paintings the artist completed after World War I forced his reluctant return to the United States. It features a glass of green absinthe, a potent drink associated with European café life, a social milieu that Hartley had found extraordinarily stimulating.
MEDIUM
Oil on composition board
DATES
1916
DIMENSIONS
24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm)
Frame: 30 1/4 x 26 3/4 x 1 1/2 in. (76.8 x 67.9 x 3.8 cm) (show scale)
INSCRIPTIONS
Inscribed verso upper left: "Handsome Drinks,/Handsome Drinks/Marsden Hartley"
COLLECTIONS
American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
72.3
CREDIT LINE
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Lowenthal
EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Marsden Hartley (American, 1877–1943). Handsome Drinks, 1916. Oil on composition board, 24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Lowenthal, 72.3 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 72.3_SL1.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 72.3_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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