Madawaska—Acadian Light-Heavy

Marsden HartleyWW-1940-143279

1940·Oil on hardboard·101.6 × 76.2 cm (40 × 30 in.)

<p>“I have for the first time since 1922 a real live model a magnificent young feller. . . . His body is so fine and dear I could work almost without end from him.” So wrote Marsden Hartley about Lionel Daigle, a French- Canadian boxer from the town of Madawaska, Maine, who modeled for a series of paintings by the artist. A Maine native himself, Hartley drew upon local types at this time to create a mythic view of the state’s inhabitants as rugged individualists. Hartley delighted in painting the man’s body, which allowed him to express his own sexuality. He emphasized Daigle’s strong physique, exaggerating his anatomy and originally painting him nude (subsequently adding the brief covering). Ironically, critics in the 1940s applauded the work as a display of heteronormative masculinity.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1940
Medium: Oil on hardboard
Dimensions: 101.6 × 76.2 cm (40 × 30 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Marsden Hartley

Artist

Marsden Hartley

Painting

Recognized as one of the leading artists of American Modernism, painter Marsden Hartley developed a unique style that largely revolved around landscape, strong colors and geometric abstraction. Hartley was born in 1877 in Lewiston, Maine, but when he was eight his mother died and he was sent to live with a relative in the nearby city of Auburn, where he endured a lonesome and unhappy childhood. He rejoined his immediate family in Ohio in 1893, and began studying at the Cleveland School of Art. His work caught the attention of one of the schools trustees, who granted him the financial means to continue his studies in New York City for five years, beginning in 1899; his skill as an artist improved dramatically, and in 1902, while studying at the National Academy of Design, he won the school’s Suydam Silver Medal for still-life drawing.

Lewiston, ME, United States

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