It’s oil on hardboard and was painted in 1940 by Marsden Hartley, an American modernist painter of the first half of the 20th century.
Its title is “Madawaska — Acadian Light-Heavy,” and you can see it here, at the Art Institute of Chicago. According to Teddi-Jann Covell, president of the Bangor Art Society, it will be part of a retrospective of Marsden Hartley’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017.
That much is known.
What isn’t known is who the man in that painting is.
Marsden Hartley was born in Lewiston, Jan. 4, 1877, and died in Ellsworth, Sept. 2, 1943. The subject of “Madawaska — Acadian Light-Heavy” also was a Mainer, according to Hartley’s writings. According to Covell, The Metropolitan Museum of Art reached out to her for help identifying the mystery man in the painting. She has since been on a search for information to uncover who this model, whom Hartley refers to in his writing, may be.
According to Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser’s text “Marsden Hartley,” published by Yale University Press, this painting is “one of a series of paintings that Hartley intended for a gymnasium.”
The model for the painting, who Covell’s contact at the MET believes was once named Albert Daigle, has preoccupied her time lately as she attempts to figure out who he was. Covell believes he may have changed his name to Norman Albert at some point in his life based on a tip from a friend who remembers working with a man in a Madawaska mill who fit the subject’s description.
But why is it important in the first place?
“Hartley was a significant artist in America, and he was Mainer,” Covell said.
“Since I went back to Maine and have drawn power of Maine’s force and grandeur to me I have taken another spurt and my glory has become localized which delights me beyond words,” Hartley wrote to Norma Berger on April 16, 1940, as referenced in Kornhauser’s text. “— as everyone knows of me in Maine now and is so kind and welcoming — the State of Maine itself having sent me a letter of ‘official’ recognition as Maine’s #1 artist — and I am so proud of all that.”
In addition, Hartley was an important figure in the history of the Bangor Art Society. He taught classes to members of the group and referred to it in a letter he wrote to a friend, which also is referenced in Kornhauser’s text.
“My model last year at the art school in Bangor and who posed for me privately God what a magnificent corps [sic] — is a Madawasca [sic] boy of Acadian descent … a prizefighter … and is such a sweet lad — 22,” Hartley wrote. According to Covell, the school he refers to is the group of members of the Bangor Art Society whom he taught.
In a letter reference in Kornhauser’s text to Adelaide Kuntz on Feb. 2, 1940, he wrote, “I have for the first time since 1922 a real live model a magnificent young feller a light heavy weight French Canadian …”
Hartley’s work throughout the years consisted of landscapes, still lifes and figures, and this painting was done in later life.
Covell has reached out to different organizations, including the Bangor Daily News, on her search for articles about his potential boxing accolades back in the ’40s. No information has surfaced in that respect, but she has continued picking the brains of members of the Bangor Art Society and other friends and family to attempt to identify the unknown man.
“[My contact at the MET] looked at the census in Madawaska and he thinks [the model] was orphaned,” Covell said. Covell also believes the painting’s subject trained and lived at the Bangor Y.
Covell has done some searching and found several obituaries online for Albert Daigle and Norman Albert, but the ages have been off by 10 or more years.
Hartley indicated he was 22 in 1940, so if the man were alive today, he would be about 98 years old. Covell is holding out hope that someone somewhere might remember a boxer from Madawaska who posed for a painting, so she is not stopping her search yet.
“I’m hoping in the next couple of weeks to go up to Madawaska and talk to some people in nursing homes,” she said.
Until then, she asks those who may have known him to reach out. Who was Albert Daigle? What did his boxing career in Maine look like? In 1965, Muhammad Ali knocked out Sonny Liston in Lewiston. Was Daigle there to see it? And how did he come to model for the painting that Covell says will feature at the MET?
