Movement: Boats and Objects, Blue Gray Sea
<p>In late compositions such as <em>Movement: Boats and Objects, Blue Gray Sea</em>, John Marin used oil paint as thinly as he did watercolor, the medium for which he is best known. This work likely depicts the Maine coast, where Marin summered and painted throughout his career, exploring how best to express movement and spontaneity in paint. The artist practiced architecture before becoming a painter, and late in life he returned to three-dimensional design, creating painted frames that complement his pictures. Marin had a close relationship with Alfred Stieglitz, who supported him financially and critically from 1910 on and helped him become one of the most successful American Modernists.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1947
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 73.7 × 92.1 cm (29 × 36 1/4 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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More by John Marin
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)
Brooklyn Bridge - on the Bridge, No. 2
1944 · Etching
Movement: Sky and Grey Sea
1941 · Watercolor, charcoal, and pencil on paper
Circus Elephants
1941 · Watercolor with scraping and wiping, and with opaque watercolor, graphite and black crayon, on medium-weight, slightly textured, cream laid paper
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
Nudes in Sea
1940 · Watercolor with blotting, wiping, and scraping, and black crayon, with brown colored pencil, on heavyweight, moderately textured, ivory wove paper (all edges trimmed), in original frame
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- John Marin
- Year
- 1947
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 73.7 × 92.1 cm (29 × 36 1/4 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1947-049935
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified