LEWISTON – The Bates College Museum of Art announced Monday it received a $192,000 grant to construct a public catalog of all known artworks by Lewiston artist Marsden Hartley.

A 1942 portrait of Marsden Hartley. Bates College received a $192,000 grant to create a comprehensive public catalogue of Hartley’s work. Alfredo Valente

The grant was awarded by the New York-based Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts, and will be used to create “the first-ever comprehensive, publicly accessible guide” to all of Hartley’s artwork.

The project will be called the “Marsden Hartley Legacy Project: The Complete Paintings and Works on Paper.”

Museum Director Dan Mills said the project will be an online resource and “free and accessible to the public.”

Hartley, who was born in Lewiston in 1877 and died in Ellsworth in 1943, was considered a “pioneer of American Modernism,” according to a news release from Bates College, and was affiliated with several renowned artists, including Georgia O’Keefe and John Marin.

The grant is being awarded in two installments. The first was made over the summer, while the second is expected in June 2020.

Mills said since the Bates Museum of Art is already home to the Hartley Memorial Collection, established in the 1950s by a bequest from Hartley’s estate, “Bates thought it was important to be the institution to initiate this project and establish it here.”

The project will begin as an annotated online catalog of all of Hartley’s known paintings and works, according to the news release, with the potential for a published book of the works as a long-term goal.

Mills said Monday having the pre-existing Hartley Collection and the upcoming Hartley Legacy Project at Bates College will allow the Bates Museum of Art to be a “comprehensive resource” to Hartley’s art.

“Additionally, having our collection researched by international scholars and lending art and materials to exhibitions is one way the museum increases the scholarship on and knowledge of the collection at Bates,” Mills said.

“Students and members of the Bates community (also) benefit from increased scholarship on Hartley.”

The project will be directed by Gail R. Scott of Portland, an independent art historian and curator, according to Bates College.

Scott said that over the years, people have attempted to create a full catalog of Hartley’s work, but were unable to follow through on it.

“It’s very important for scholars, galleries, museums and even collectors to have this accessible,” Scott said of the project.