Somehow a Past: The Autobiography of Marsden Hartley

Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) is best known as an American modernist and pioneering artist of the early 20th century. But he was also a prolific writer who published dozens of essays and reviews and several volumes of poetry and prose. The autobiographical account of his life in the manuscript collection of Yale's Beinecke Library has often been consulted by scholars and curators writing about Hartley. It is a most revealing document about his personal life and relationships - both for its disclosures and omissions - but has never been published before. Transcribed from Hartley's own handwritten manuscripts, this edition is accompanied by photographs (some never before published), notes and an introduction discussing Hartley's fascination with autobiography in the context of his struggle with notions of self-representation in art. Susan Ryan also describes the circumstances surrounding the composition of "Somehow a Past", and explains the distinctions between this original version and two later ones also in the Beinecke Library. "Somehow a Past" is an historical document and a personal narrative. Although solitary, self-involved and saturnine, Hartley nevertheless knew nearly every figure of the international avant-garde in his day and unfolds his life largely through a chain of personal encounters. His traffic with such major literary and artistic figures as Alfred Stieglitz, Vasili Kandinski, Gertrude Stein, Mabel Dodge, Eugene O'Neill, Robert McAlmon and Charles Demuth is recorded as are his travels both domestic and foreign. Hartley drafted the text several times, truncating the description of his traumatic childhood, and leaving out any overt reference to his homosexuality. Yet there are moments of self-characterization and leit-motifs that commemorate his troubled youth.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Marsden Hartley - practicing the "eyes" in autobiography; "Somehow a past" - a poem by Marsden Hartley; somehow a past - a prologue to imaginative living. Appendices: Hartley's letters to Gertrude Stein regarding the autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; exerpts from Hartley's letters to Norma Berger regarding "Somehow a Past"; alternative version of the poem; exerpts from "Somehow a Past: a Sequence of memories Not to be Called an Autobiography"; exerpts from "Somehow a Past: a Journal of Recollection". Chronology - Hartley's life and travels.

Review :
"As a writer, Hartley renders his life and the circumstances of his work with an often overblown drama, but it is precisely this drama that mirrors the physic mood underlying his character and, consequently, much of his art. While biographical information exists elsewhere, Hartley's own recounting of his story offers illuminations that transcend the factual. By making this self-view available to more than a handful of scholars, this book will enrich the field of early 20th century art history."--Barbara Haskell, Curator, Painting and Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art & quot; As a writer, Hartley renders his life and the circumstances of his work with an often overblown drama, but it is precisely this drama that mirrors the physic mood underlying his character and, consequently, much of his art. While biographical information exists elsewhere, Hartley's own recounting of his story offers illuminations that transcend the factual. By making this self-view available to more than a handful of scholars, this book will enrich the field of early 20th century art history.& quot; -- Barbara Haskell, Curator, Painting and Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art " As a writer, Hartley renders his life and the circumstances of his work with an often overblown drama, but it is precisely this drama that mirrors the physic mood underlying his character and, consequently, much of his art. While biographical information exists elsewhere, Hartley's own recounting of his story offers illuminations that transcend the factual. By making this self-view available to more than a handful of scholars, this book will enrich the field of early 20th century art history." -- Barbara Haskell, Curator, Painting and Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art -- Barbara Haskell, Curator, Painting and Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art