Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) was an American modernist painter. Originally from Lewiston, Maine, Hartley was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, but he traveled extensively throughout his life and studied at various institutions, including the Cleveland School of Art and the National Academy of Design. His work went through several stylistic phases, including neoimpressionist, expressionist, cubist, and representational. His most well-known works are part of a series of German military paintings, entitled The War Motifs, which he painted during the first years of World War I while living in Berlin, Germany.

Portrait of a German Officer

Portrait of a German Officer (1914) is an example of Hartley’s use of both the geometric juxtapositions of cubism and the coarse brushwork and dramatic hues of German expressionism. In honor of his friend Karl von Freyburg, a cavalry officer who was killed in action during the war, Hartley included in this painting Freyburg’s initials (Kv.F), his regiment number (4), and his age (24).