This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Chicago, Illinois, Hardesty Maratta was a well-known watercolorist and designer of TECO pottery for the Gates Teco Pottery Company of Terra Cotta, Illinois. He, a life-long resident of Chicago, studied at the Art Institute of Chicago where he exhibited from 1888 to 1906.
Maratta was one of the artists commissioned by Juan Lorenzo Hubbell, owner of the Hubbell Trading Post at Ganado, Arizona, to copy Navajo rugs, especially the classic designs, in watercolor and oil. Hubbell then hung these designs on his walls to encourage the rug weavers working at his Post to duplicate the designs so they could be preserved for posterity.
Maratta also painted in California in the late 1890s, and a painting, San Juan Capistrano Mission, is in the Santa Fe Railroad collection. In 1897, he painted in and around Sacramento and was in Los Angeles in 1899.
An exhibition venue was the Nashville Expo of 1897.
Sources:
Doris Dawdy, Artists of the American West, Vol. II
Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940
Martha Blue, Indian Trader, The Life and Times of J.L. Hubbell
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Biography from Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site:
| Hardesty Gillmore Maratta was an American artist who was born August 22, 1864, in Chicago, Illinois. His art education was obtained at the Art Institute of Chicago. Though he painted in other mediums, his specialty was watercolor.
Maratta was one of the artists commissioned by Juan Lorenzo Hubbell to copy Navajo rugs, especially of the classic period, in oil or watercolor. These Hubbell rug designs hung on the trading post walls to encourage rug weavers to duplicate the designs of that period. Maratta also painted in California. A painting of the San Juan Capistrano Mission, probably painted before 1907, is among the Santa Fe Railroad Collection.
Maratta exhibited at the Nashville Expo in 1897. His work is in the Santa Fe Railroad Collection, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; Fogg Museum, Harvard University; and Hubbell Trading Post Museum, Ganado, Arizona. Maratta died in October 1924.
REFERENCES:
Benezit, E. Dictionnaire Critique...Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs.1985...Temps. Paris: Librarie Grund. 1976.
Dawdy, Doris Ostrander. Artists of the American West: A Biographical Dictionary. [1974] 3 vols. Chicago: Swallow Press. 1985.
Falk, Peter Hastings. Who Was Who in American Art. Connecticut: Sound View Press. 1985.
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