Camellias in a Vase

Provenance

Charles Daniel Gallery, New York, New York
Duncan Phillips (1886–1966), Washington, D.C., 1927, acquired from above
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C., from above
William Macbeth Gallery, New York, New York, 1942, acquired from above
(possibly) Adelaide Kuntz (1895–1966), Bronxville, New York
Frances Kuntz Malek, New York, New York, daughter of above
(possibly) By descent from the above, 1966
M. Knoedler & Co., New York, New York, consigned from above, 1967
Frances Kuntz Malek, New York, New York, returned from above, 1968
Bernard Danenberg Galleries, Inc., New York, New York
Senator William Burnett Benton (1900–1973), 1970, Connecticut
O’Meara Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Private collection, 2009, acquired from above
Private collection, acquired from above
Sale, Bonhams, New York, New York, April 30, 2025, lot 5, from above

Exhibited

Phillips Memorial Gallery, Washington, D.C., Intimate Decorations: Chiefly Paintings of Still Life in New Manners, November 1–29, 1927
M. Knoedler & Co., New York, New York, Marsden Hartley: A Selection of Paintings and Drawings of the Twenties and Thirties, January 9–27, 1968, no.13
Bernard Danenberg Galleries, Inc., New York, New York, Recent Acquisitions: Important American Paintings, Winter 1969, 13, no. 24, illustrated
Bernard Danenberg Galleries, Inc., New York, New York, Marsden Hartley: A Retrospective Exhibition, September 16–October 4, 1969, 6, 17, no. 18, illustrated
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, 1970
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., American Impressions: Masterworks from American Art Forum Collections, 1875–1935, March 27–July 5, 1993

Literature

Duncan Phillips, The Artist Sees Differently: Essays Based Upon the Philosophy of A Collection in the Making (Washington, D.C.: Phillips Memorial Gallery, 1931), vol. 2, no. 6.
Hilton Kramer, “Marsden Hartley, American Yet Cosmopolitan,” New York Times, January 20, 1968, 25.
Elizabeth Hutton Turner, In the American Grain: Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, 1995), 32.

This painting is included in the Marsden Hartley Legacy Project: Complete Paintings and Works on Paper, with Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, Maine.

Related Works

Untitled (Still Life), 1917, oil and metal leaf on glass, 11 7/16 x 9 5/16 inches; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
Pink Begonias, oil on wood panel, 17¾ x 14⅛ inches; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

Note

Camellias in a Vase represents a significant moment in Marsden Hartley’s artistic career: a stylistic transformation from symbolic and mystical abstraction toward a more formal, compositional exploration. Featuring a tilted tabletop, an ambiguous spatial background, and sculptural drapery, the painting emphasizes flatness while expressing Hartley’s distinctive personal style through bold color and centralized composition.

Renowned collector Duncan Phillips included the painting in a 1927 exhibition, pairing Hartley with Georgia O’Keeffe and describing the work as “almost ritualistic in their passion over their patterns and the emotional meaning of their colors.” Decades later, critic Hilton Kramer called the painting “a small masterpiece of pictorial construction” and noted that it was one of the pictures in which “his understanding of the radical movements in European art has been absorbed at a more personal level of expression.” Widely recognized as a museum-quality still life, the painting stands as a testament to Hartley’s stylistic evolution and the assertion of a uniquely individual voice.