MARIN, JOHN

born Dec. 23, 1870, Rutherford, N.J., U.S. died Oct. 1, 1953, Cape Split, Maine American painter and printmaker, especially known for his expressionistic watercolour seascapes of Maine and his views of Manhattan. After working as an architectural draftsman, Marin studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy in Philadelphia and at the Art Students League of New York. In 1905 he went to Europe, where he was influenced by the watercolours and etchings of James McNeill Whistler. But he remained unaware of the new movements of European art until 1910, when he returned to New York. There, at Alfred Stieglitz' 291 Gallery and at the Armory Show in 1913, he became familiar with Cubism and the various schools of German Expressionism. Influenced by those movements, his own style matured into a very personal form of expressionism, exemplified by such works as The Singer Building (1921), Lower Manhattan (1920), and Maine Islands (1922). Watercolour is usually employed to produce only delicate, transparent effects, but Marin's brilliant command of the medium enabled him to render the monumental power of the city and the relentless surge of the sea on the Maine coast. Although semiabstract, his works were always based on objective reality. His concern with force and motion, however, led him to produce such works as Lower Manhattan (1922; Museum of Modern Art, New York City) and Off York Island, Maine (1922; Philadelphia Museum of Art), in which objective reality is hardly recognizable. Marin's oil paintings, such as Tunk Mountains, Maine (1945; Phillips Collection), often employ the watercolour technique of dragging a nearly dry brush across the canvas to achieve an effect of lightness and transparency.