?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
JOHN MARIN (1870-1953) Hudson River Valley.
Watercolor on wove paper, 1911. 422x355 mm; 16⅝x14 inches. Signed and dated lower right.
Provenance An American Place, New York (label bearing the ink inscription "Ok'ed by Alfred Stieglitz"). Julius Zirinsky, New York. Private collection, New York. Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, February 14-19, 1948, lot 15. Ned Pines, New York. William Zierler, Inc., New York (label). Purchased from the above by private collector, New York, October 24, 1969. Thence by descent to current owners, New York.
Exhibited "50th Collectors Show and Sale," Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, November 16, 2018-January 6, 2019.
During his travels to France before 1908, John Marin developed a soft-edged watercolor technique which may have been inspired by the Modernists and Neo-Impressionists working there. In these early watercolors, Marin used rectangular shaped brushstrokes and brought his subjects to the forefront of the composition. Gray, blue, and lavender hues in these works derived from his studies of James McNeill Whistler's work. Marin returned to New York in 1909-10 and used his watercolor technique to paint views of the city. His soft-focused paintings were connected to Alfred Stieglitz's photographs of New York; both artists aimed to capture the ephemeral environment.
After returning from another trip abroad in 1911, Marin felt pressure from the Photo-Secessionist and Stieglitz's younger followers to embrace their brand of modernism. Works from 1911, perhaps because of this conflict, are particularly rare as Marin's output waned. Marin incorporated a brighter, more imaginative palette in his 1911 watercolors like the present work. These atmospheric landscapes are stylistically reminiscent of his earlier French and New York works.
