Mountain Landscape with Trees, 1933 (silverpoint on paper)

Inscribed in lower right of recto: Karwendel Oct 7/33 / from Geschwandtauerbauer Between September 1933 and March 1934, American artist Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) traveled to Germany. First landing in Hamburg, he wended his way south to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a village in the Bavarian Alps, producing works that captured the spare geometries of the surrounding mountains. In the 21 rarely exhibited silverpoint drawings, Hartley rendered the immense rock Alps with delicate lines, transforming them into wispy, airy abstractions that he called “skeletons."