Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) was born in Lewiston, Maine, USA. He began his art training at the Cleveland Art Institute after moving to Cleveland, Ohio in 1892. At the age of 22, he moved to New York City where he attended the National Academy of Design and studied painting with William Merritt Chase. While in New York, he came to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz and became associated with Stieglitz' Gallery 291 Group. His painting Portrait of a German Officer (1914), was an ode to Karl von Freyburg, a Prussian lieutenant with whom he became enamored before his death in World War I.

Marsden Hartley