Valley of the Hondo, New Mexico
<p>Marin made his first trip to the West in early June 1929 at the suggestion of two friends, Georgia O'Keeffe and Rebecca Strand (wife of the photographer Paul Strand). O'Keeffe' s invitation came at a good moment, because Marin was feeling the need to explore new territory and escape what he called "living in herds" in Manhattan. Marin had also been tempted to visit the West by his friend the painter Marsden Hartley's vivid descriptions of the landscape. During the summers of 1929 and 1930 Marin lived and painted in New Mexico, following the lead of several of the artists who congregated around the 291 gallery in New York. <em>Valley of the Hondo, New Mexico</em> was one of the group of thirty watercolors that was exhibited in 1931 at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery An American Place.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1930
- Dimensions
- 39.4 × 52.2 cm (15 9/16 × 20 9/16 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- John Marin
Artist
Painting
John Marin was an American modernist painter and printmaker known for his dynamic watercolors and etchings of coastal landscapes, particularly Maine. Working primarily in watercolor from the 1910s onward, he developed a fractured, energetic visual language that synthesized Cubist fragmentation with direct observation of nature. His gestural brushwork and bold use of paper's white ground anticipated Abstract Expressionism while maintaining a strong sense of place and atmospheric condition. Marin spent decades based in Maine, where the rocky coastlines and maritime environment became the primary subject of his mature work.
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Approaching Fog
1952 · Watercolor with blotting, wiping and traces of scraping, and with brush and black ink, graphite, fabricated charcoal, and touches of opaque watercolor on medium-weight, rough-textured, off-white wove paper (four edges trimmed)
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1947 · Oil on canvas
Brooklyn Bridge - on the Bridge, No. 2
1944 · Etching
Cape Split, Maine
1941 · Watercolor with touches of blotting, and with graphite and black colored pencil, on lightweight (estimated), slightly textured, ivory wove paper (top, left and right edges trimmed), laid down on artists’ board faced with ivory wove paper, in original frame
Circus Elephants
1941 · Watercolor with scraping and wiping, and with opaque watercolor, graphite and black crayon, on medium-weight, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Movement: Sky and Grey Sea
1941 · Watercolor, charcoal, and pencil on paper
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- John Marin
- Year
- 1930
- Dimensions
- 39.4 × 52.2 cm (15 9/16 × 20 9/16 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1930-131287
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified