Background
John Marin was born at Rutherford, New Jersey on December 23, 1872, of French and pre-Revolutionary American stock. He grew up at Weehawken.
John Marin was born at Rutherford, New Jersey on December 23, 1872, of French and pre-Revolutionary American stock. He grew up at Weehawken.
He received his schooling at Union Hill, Hoboken Academy, Stevens Preparatory School, and Stevens Institute.
Still uncertain of himself, he worked as a clerk for two years and then spent four more in an architect's office. He persistently sketched in his off-hours, however, and in 1899 entered the Pennsylvania Academy, where he won prizes for drawing before leaving in 1901 to study for two more years at the Art Students League in New York. Marin, who had already established himself as an etcher, traveled abroad in 1905, and in 1906 did an oil that was accepted by the Luxembourg.
Still etching, he also produced tremulous watercolors that no dealer wanted, but Alfred Stieglitz, director of the famous progressive gallery in New York at 291 Fifth Avenue, accepted them for showing in 1909 and continued showing them as Marin's protector and friend until his death in 1946. Marin returned briefly to the United States for the first exhibition and, after another interval in Paris, returned permanently in 1911.
Concentrating on watercolors for the next few years, he became, as the critic Henry McBride once said, the Beethoven in that medium. He could be ranked with the Chinese masters for his delicate treatment of the landscape of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New England, the seashore of Maine, and the towers of Manhattan.
By 1932, however, Marin, who never had deserted oils, began to take a deeper interest in this medium and produced a number of authoritative and substantial works on the circus, on Manhattan streets and architecture, and, as always, on Maine. Some critics rated him the most important American artist since Whistler.