Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1912 (Heft 38))

David Lloyd in the “Evening Post”:
In the same camp with Mr. Weber, Marsden Hartley pitches his tent at the Photo-
Secession, No. 291 Fifth Avenue. There are drawings here in black and white and landscapes,
but one carries away from the exhibition more distinctly a vision of the still life, the blue water
jugs, the gleaming colored fruits, the livid cucumber, and the rather dull and dreary plantain.
Mr. Hartley should hang a bunch of fat plantains in his studio. They would tempt his brush
to do them better justice. What the more incandescent fruits were—apples, oranges, peaches-
we cannot for the life of us recall, which, perhaps, is a tribute to his handiwork, and may show
that he was able to invite our soul forth to the pleasures of seeing rather than the homely cares
of marketing. The still life, at any rate, stands in the first order of color. The whole group is
seen in recollection flooded with its candid vigor, with the result that one is as much enlivened
here as depressed by most of the Weber paintings.
Here again form and perspective, if not sacrificed, are minimized, for mass and tint.
Flower-pots surmounted by the usual circular flange and rim must take on the appearance of
the complicated curves of the brim of a top hat. The must is mandatory. In ordinary work,
basely patterned after the draughting of conic sections, the ellipses must suggest the mouth of
a flower-pot. In painting of this sort, never; the flower-pot, without ceasing to carry the
notion of a flower-pot, must have a little the air of a hat. This is no matter of faulty drawing
incurred by reason of a greater interest in color, it has every appearance of deliberate conven-
tion. We mistrust its worth and its ultimate persistence. But we take off our hat—we would
take off our flower-pot if we were privileged to wear one—to the color Mr. Hartley gives us.
Joseph Edgar Chamberlin in the “N. Y. Mail”:
At the Photo-Secession we find the work of another of our “fauves”—Marsden Hartley,
the gentle painter of superheated still life and rainbow landscapes.
We are unable to go all the way with Mr. Hartley, but there is no reason why those who
delight in unconditional surrender to an artistic impulse should not take pleasure in several of
these canvases. Their color is deep and often spiritual; no man can put more of the esoteric
into a cucumber than Mr. Hartley. And they breathe sincerity in every line and tint.
James Huneker in the “N. Y. Sun”:
At the gallery of the Photo-Secession Marsden Hartley is showing his recent work, of
which we liked best the still life, the fruit and flowers. The portrait, a full length of a promi-
nent academician, is one of the best things in the room and a remarkable psychological pre-
sentment of a wooden pinhead. Paintings and drawings by Max Weber are on view at the
Murray Hill Gallery. Like Mr. Hartley, Mr. Weber is advanced in theory and practice of
his art. His landscapes are familiar and there is no mistaking the veracity—that is from the
Weberian viewpoint. The still life reveals tactile values; the research for volume, for the
third dimension, in the figures is often rewarded. But no need here to expect sleek surfaces
or even everyday resemblance to mundane life. All is a symbol and aims at only rhythmic
life. Certain to be received with laughter or execration, Mr. Weber is brave enough to stick
to his guns. With Picasso, Weber and Hartley have gone back to the Egyptians for formal
hints and tints. Where it will all lead to no one may predict, but if this be madness then
there is method in it. Too much method. Nevertheless for purposes of courtship we prefer
the Childe Hassam girls to the wooden jointed dolls of Weber. But the latter may secure the
vote some day; the former never. We admired the interesting copy of “Las Meninas,” by
Velasquez; rather the free paraphrase by the talented Weber.
Elizabeth L. Carey in the “N. Y. Times”:
We suppose Marsden Hartley would be called a Post-Impressionist. He is holding an
exhibition at the Photo-Secession Galleries, in which still life predominates, and his studies of
fruit in dishes of royal color are delicious. We use the word advisedly, for the painter has
so perfectly realized the lusciousness of flesh in a ripe peach and the exotic creamy texture
of a banana that has begun to turn a trifle black at the edges, that one loses track of his sensa-
tions and believes himself at a succulent feast, indeed. This, we suppose, is the aim of the
school, to paint the juiciness of a juice and the leatheriness of leather while preserving a deco-

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