Canvas & Clay: The Collection of Judith and Philip Sieg, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania

According to Sheldon Reich's catalogue raisonné on the artist, John Marin Jr. stated that this picture has been incorrectly dated 1919 and titled Deer Isle Stonington Maine. In reality, he notes, it was done in Castorland in 1913.

Provenance:

Estate of the Artist

Marlborough Gallery, New York

Vandervelde McKinney Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owners, 1980

Literature:

Sheldon Reich, John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné, Tucson, 1970, Volume II, no. 13.6, p. 374

Lot note:

What I attempt to do in my own work is to put down objects – a kind of mind-picture in suspended motion – so that when one of my pictures is called abstract it is only because I leave it to the imagination to supply whether what I have painted is a gull, or a ship, or a person.

(Dorothy Norman, “John Marin,” College Art Journal, 14:4, pp. 320-331)

John Marin’s modern watercolors take inspiration from nature but are not intended to faithfully portray specific views. His true goal was to explore color, shape, and vision, making him a true modernist who played with the limits of watercolor as a medium. As a result, his watercolors are abstract, but always maintain a sense of the subject matter. Marin traveled throughout the Northeast of the United States, including trips to Castorland, in upstate New York. The present watercolor highlights the first tree in a grove to change leaf color, marking the beginning of autumn. Marin crafts the trees loosely to reduce the grove to patches of color that are contained with strong, broad strokes. This treatment of the subject matter allows for his hallmark abstraction and individual interpretations of the striking scene.

Framed: 27 3/4 x 24 3/4 inches.

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