The artwork, titled “Study for Poster Portrait Marsden Hartley,” was created by artist Charles Demuth in 1924. This piece belongs to the Expressionism art movement and falls under the genre of sketch and study.
In the artwork, a prominent red flower is depicted with distinctive, almost cartoonish, outlines. It dominates the central foreground, standing inside an understated vase placed near a window. The background includes a faintly outlined landscape featuring blue skies interspersed with stylized white clouds and sloping hills or mountains. Written annotations such as “All Red,” “White Clouds,” and “Snow” suggest Demuth’s attention to color and environment details. The name “HARTLEY” runs vertically along the left-side of the artwork, executed in bold, rough strokes, while smaller script notes can be observed throughout the study, lending a sense of draftsmanship to the overall composition.
