Handsome Drinks
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
The meaning of the letters in this colorful still life is a mystery, one whose solution may have been intensely personal for Hartley. The letters, and the clean, flat shapes that simultaneously seem to be pasted to the picture plane and register as objects in illusionistic space, recall the Cubist collage aesthetic that Hartley embraced during his stays in Europe. Handsome Drinks is one of the first paintings the artist completed after World War I forced his reluctant return to the United States. It features a glass of green absinthe, a potent drink associated with European café life, a social milieu that Hartley had found extraordinarily stimulating.
Caption
Marsden Hartley American, 1877–1943. Handsome Drinks, 1916. Oil on composition board, 24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm) Frame: 30 1/4 x 26 3/4 x 1 1/2 in. (76.8 x 67.9 x 3.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Lowenthal, 72.3. No known copyright restrictions (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 72.3_SL1.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Handsome Drinks
Date
1916
Medium
Oil on composition board
Classification
Dimensions
24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm) Frame: 30 1/4 x 26 3/4 x 1 1/2 in. (76.8 x 67.9 x 3.8 cm)
Inscriptions
Inscribed verso upper left: "Handsome Drinks,/Handsome Drinks/Marsden Hartley"
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Lowenthal
Accession Number
72.3
Rights
No known copyright restrictions
This work may be in the public domain in the United States. Works created by United States and non-United States nationals published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, subject to the terms of any applicable treaty or agreement. You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this work. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties, such as artists or artists' heirs holding the rights to the work. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. The Brooklyn Museum makes no representations or warranties with respect to the application or terms of any international agreement governing copyright protection in the United States for works created by foreign nationals. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
Frequent Art Questions
Is this painting by Marsden Hartley? What do the words mean?
Yes, the artist is Marsden Hartley! This work is called "Handsome Drinks." You have asked an excellent question. The letters the artist included remain mysterious to us. Scholars speculate that the letters represent something symbolic and personal to Hartley. Both the style of the still life and the objects he includes, like the glass of absinthe, allude to his time spent in Europe.
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