John Marin Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
American, 1872-1953
John Marin was born in Rutherford, New Jersey in 1870. His father was a public accountant; his mother died nine days after his birth. He was taken to his maternal grandparents with whom he lived in Weehawken, New Jersey. His grandparents, with their son and two daughters were the only parents Marin was to know; it has been suggested that his father seems to have ignored him. As a child of seven or eight Marin began to sketch and when he was a teenager he had completed his earliest watercolors. His education in the schools of New Jersey was interspersed with summers of hunting, fishing and sketching; he traveled in the Catskills, and as far away as Wisconsin and Minnesota. But formal training was almost incidental to his development as an artist.
He is to America what Paul Cezanne was to France - an innovator who helped to oppose the influence of the narrative painters, the illustrators who were more interested in subject than form, in surface than substance. Marin brought to his work a combination of values which, at the turn of the century, was unique in this country: an aliveness of touch, colors that have both sparkle and solidity, and forms that are vibrant with an energy characteristic of our age.
Marin established himself as a practicing architect. In the early 1890s, he worked for four architects and by 1893 had designed six houses in Union Hill, New Jersey. At the age of twenty-eight, he decided to become a professional artist and studied briefly at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Art Students League in New York City.
As a watercolorist he had no equal. He used this fluid, spontaneous medium to abstract from objects - skyscrapers, boats, mountains and seas - a simplified anatomy of color and form and to define the pulsation of stresses and movements in the relationship of objects. It was a great disappointment, all his life, that his oil paintings did not achieve the popularity that his watercolors did.
From 1905 to 1910 he worked in Europe, where he was influenced by Whistler's watercolors. It was Alfred Stieglitz, Marin's lifetime friend and dealer, whose firm faith in his genius made his position in the art world possible. He developed a distinctive style that he used most characteristically in powerful watercolors of the Maine coast. During the 1920s he provided the dominant force in the movement away from naturalistic representation towards an art of expressive semi-abstraction.
He married Marie Jane Hughes after he returned to New York. They had one son, who grew up to run his father's considerable affairs. Marin continued to work at the same steady fast pace as long as he lived. Since 1908 he had produced 1700 paintings, an average of forty a year. He had made the frames for them as well. At the age of seventy-nine, he began to taper off from the days when he painted one hundred watercolors in a summer. He died in 1953.to
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Artist: John Marin
Maples in Autumn Foliage
By John Marin
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
John Marin’s long and prolific career is best marked by his fervent love of painting and abiding belief that art must relate to lived experiences. His best work strikes a delicate ba...
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Brooklyn Bridge NYC American Scene Ashcan 20th Century Social Realism Modern
By John Marin
Located in New York, NY
Brooklyn Bridge NYC American Scene Ashcan 20th Century Social Realism Modern
John Marin (1870-1953)
Brooklyn Bridge
7 1/2 x 9 7/8 inches
Graphite on paper
Signed lower right, c. 1...
Category
1920s American Modern John Marin Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
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New York Street Movement and Figure - Architecture
By John Marin
Located in Miami, FL
This work by John Marin depicts an image of lower Manhattan which was Marin's more iconic subject matter. The work has a stellar provenance as well.
Provenance:
Kennedy Galleries
Richard York Gallery
ACA Galleries...
Category
1920s American Modern John Marin Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Crayon
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John Marin drawings and watercolor paintings for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic John Marin drawings and watercolor paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by John Marin in crayon and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 1920s and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large John Marin drawings and watercolor paintings, so small editions measuring 10 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Frank Wilcox, Louis Wolchonok, and Reginald Marsh. John Marin drawings and watercolor paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $32,000 and tops out at $32,000, while the average work can sell for $32,000.