John Marin (1870-1953)


Sea in Red (Version II) signed and dated 'Marin 48' (lower right)oil on canvas22 x 28inPainted in 1948.
|ProvenanceThe artist.Estate of the above. Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York, circa 1970.Private collection, acquired from the above, 1973.Hollis-Taggart Galleries, New York, 2003.Acquired by the present owner from the above, 2006. ExhibitedNew York, An American Place, John Marin's New Paintings in Oil and Watercolor, December 7, 1948-January 31, 1949. LiteratureC. Gray, John Marin by John Marin, New York, 1970, p. 131, illustrated. S. Reich, John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné, Part II, Tucson, Arizona, 1970, p. 764, no. 48.27, illustrated.John Marin was one of the most acclaimed artists of his era, according to a poll of museum directors and art critics, and he was named the finest living painter in America by Look Magazine in 1948. Marin's energetic later works were a precursor of what was to come from the next, younger generation of post-war Abstract Expressionist painters. Marin was, like Georgia O'Keeffe and Arthur Dove, one of the mainstays of Alfred Stieglitz's gallery. Sea in Red (Version II) was among a small number of oils selected to be included in the artist's last solo-exhibition at Stieglitz's American Place gallery in New York, from December 1948 through January 1949. Marin reveled in the expressionism which he had seen in the Fauve painters in France, and originated his own spontaneous, ignited brushstrokes to create one of the most original bodies of work in the history of American art. Sea in Red (Version II) stands as a culmination of his artistic career. The present work exhibits stylistically and technically Marin's mature style, including staccato linear brushwork, passages of open canvas, and alternating thin and thickly brushed strokes. These stylistic devices imbue the work with movement and energy. The spirited, calligraphic brushwork conveys the animated flight of seagulls, and power of the wind and waves crashing over the rocks of the Maine coast. In the present work, Marin powerfully captured his sense of the rhythms and movements of the experience of being at the sea.