NEW YORK CITY – “Marsden Hartley New Mexico 1918-1920: ,” on view through April 19 at Alexandre Gallery, is an exhibition presented in association with Mark Borghi Fine Art, Inc. and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with text by Gail R. Scott, whose work on Hartley includes a monograph published by Abbeville Press, among other books.

This is the first exhibition to explore the paintings and pastels created by Marsden Hartley in New Mexico during a 17-month period beginning in June 1918 – Hartley’s only trip to the American West.

Painted in direct response to a vast and austere mountainous landscape, these works are characterized by bold muscular marks, brilliant raw color and a deep emotional and spiritual connection with both his new surroundings and the idea of an “American” landscape. Often overlooked in Hartley scholarship (including the current Wadsworth Atheneum retrospective) and overshadowed by the later New Mexico Recollections (painted in Europe), these New Mexico pictures mark Hartley’s first extended involvement with the American landscape after his assimilation of European modernism and abstraction. Hartley’s engagement in the landscape and exploration of naturalistic styles during this period establish the foundation of his later Dogtown and Maine masterpieces.

The exhibition will include major loans from public and private collections including the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (Maine), Whitney Museum of American Art, Weisman Museum of Art (Hudson Walker Collection) and Curtis Galleries (Minneapolis).

The accompanying catalog includes a facsimile of the 1921 Anderson Galleries auction brochure organized by Alfred Stieglitz (from which the New Mexico works were sold) and original texts written by Hartley while in New Mexico. In the 1918 article America as Landscape, Hartley writes “I am an American. I like the position and I like the results.”

Alexandre Gallery is at 41 East 57th Street at 212-755-2828 or www.alexandregallery.com.