| John Marin | ||
| Birth Date: December 23, 1870 |
||
| Death Date: October 1, 1953 Artist Gallery |
||
| John Marin is a twentieth-century American modernist painter, best known for his work in watercolors, but who also worked in oils and made many etchings. Born in 1870 in Rutherford, New Jersey, he became one of America’s leading watercolorists. Having an early predilection to draw and sketch, he ended up being made to study architecture for six years. In the early 1890s, he worked for four architects and by 1893 had designed six houses in Union Hill, New Jersey.
Marin was twenty-nine when he entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and studied under Thomas P. Anshutz and Hugh Breckenridge. He also studied at the Art Students League in New York from 1901 to 1903. Marin went abroad in 1905 and remained in Europe until 1910.
In 1912, Marin’s style changed. His use of color grew arbitrary and he initiated a more intimate relationship with his subject matter instead of simply trying to capture moods. He no longer generalized the mood, but captured the forces of nature he had begun to feel. In any event, Marin’s newly styled works established him as a modernist.
Marin first went to Maine in 1914, and the many seascapes he painted there until the very end of his life reflected his intimacy with the Maine coast.
He was extremely prolific, working with great energy (and sometimes, reportedly, with both hands) both out of doors and in his studio. Marin continued to work with undiminished energy and imagination. At the age of 80, he was still trudging up mountain paths in pursuit of another vista to paint. Until a stroke incapacitated Marin and, within several weeks, took his life, his eyes never seemed to lose their sense of wonder.
|
||