Twentieth-Century
Indian Composition, 1914-15
Marsden Hartley (American, 1887-1943) Oil on canvas
Indian Composition is one of four large paintings on American themes that Hartley painted during his extended stay in Berlin at the outset of World War I. The formal vocabulary of the "Amerika" series joins Native American motifs to colors and design elements adapted from Prussian military insignia. Acquired from Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery "291" by the collector John Quinn in 1916, this innovative canvas was sold at Quinn’s estate sale just ten years later. The buyer was Paul Rosenfeld, a music critic, Stieglitz associate, and Poughkeepsie native.
Study for Portrait IV, 1953
Francis Bacon (English, 1909-1992) Oil on canvas
This is the fourth in Bacon’s famous series of eight variations after Velasquez’s seated portrait of Pope Innocent X. Because the "Studies" found ready buyers, Bacon never had a chance to see them gathered together at one time – just as he had never seen Velasquez’s painting in person, preferring instead to work from small published reproductions.