New Mexico Recollection, c.1923 (oil on canvas)

A tormented and restless loner, Hartley moved back and forth between America and Europe, living at times in Maine, Ohio, New York, Paris, and Berlin. In 1918 he visited New Mexico and hated it, complaining of too many tourists and "cheap" artists. Despite his dislike for the state, its desert haunted him. In 1923 he began his New Mexico Recollections, a series of works probably painted in Berlin. The dark, brooding palette of this "recollection," one of the finest paintings on the theme, suggests an homage to the 19th-century visionary artist Albert Pinkham Ryder. The scene rolls with motion and counter motion, an effect Hartley called"wave rhythms." The twisted, tormented shapes and dark colors, which almost seem filled with lead, suggest that this wild and distant place represents a state of mind as much as an actual site. Perhaps the scene refers to the artist’s uncertainty about his own direction in life. Although he did not enjoy New Mexico at the time of his visit, in 1931 he spoke fondly of its "glorious light," while simultaneously describing the desert as "a dark forest for one who can’t take it."