Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline

Dominated by black, gray, and red, John Marin's Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline presents New York City from the East River as an assemblage of colors and shapes that suggest the appearance as well as the dynamic energy of the city. Superimposed on choppy gray waves in the foreground and the blocky forms of skyscrapers in the distance are three irregularly framed, black-outlined shapes enclosing a sailboat, a red tugboat, and the Brooklyn Bridge, evoked in its sloping suspension cables and the trademark gothic arched voids in its two great piers. These discrete forms are casually arranged like cut-out images applied over an existing view of the Manhattan skyline seen from across the river. Faraway buildings seem to hover in the air, perhaps the fracturing effect of looking into the sun, a circle of yellow in the pale pink sky as it declines between bridge and buildings and glints off the tugboat's prow. Marin's reduction of familiar forms to their essential lines and planes indicates his debt to the movement known as cubism, energized by his characteristic dynamic expressiveness.

For Marin, as for many of his contemporaries, New York City's built environment was a perennial inspiration and the Brooklyn Bridge a recurring theme. Both in Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline and in the watercolor Brooklyn Bridge, on the Bridge (TF 1999.95) of 1930, also in the Terra Foundation collection, gothic arches suffice to suggest the famous bridge, a triumph of structural engineering that had quickly become a symbol of modernity after its completion in the late nineteenth century. Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline, however, somewhat subordinates the bridge to a view of the East River as a busy industrial waterway, its churning surface crowded with working vessels as well as pleasure boats.

In the early part of his career, Marin emphasized watercolor painting and the print medium of etching. He was widely hailed for his command of watercolor when, in 1928, he turned with new enthusiasm to oil painting. Marin relished the medium's distinctive opacity, viscosity, density, and textured effects. By the time he made Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline, his manner of vigorously manipulating oil paint had begun to inform his watercolor work. Marin viewed the two as complementary, and until the end of his career worked alternately in them to address the same subjects. As demonstrated in this work, his vigorous, spontaneous application of oil paint, often harshly dragged or frantically dabbed, links the almost violent physicality of the act of painting with the chaotic flux of the city's life. Marin's new use of oils was ignored, however, even by his chief promoter and dealer, Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946). In the xenophobic and anti-modernist mood of the Depression era, critics elevated Marin to the status of an American original for his mastery of watercolor, celebrated as a characteristically American medium for its spontaneity and vitality.

Beginning in 1930, Marin sometimes distinguished his oil paintings from his watercolors by carving or painting the frames. For Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline, he applied a thin black wash to a simple wood molding, adding elongated dabs of white at regular intervals: the resulting vivid spotted effect echoes in reverse the square strokes of black against pale ground that represent distant buildings against the sky and underscores the strong counterpointing of black and white throughout the composition. Trained as an architect before he turned to art, Marin also frequently used devices within his compositions to frame or enclose forms. Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline presents a series of frames-within-the-frame: the black outlines around the forms of bridge, tugboat, and sailboat contain and control the explosive energy of Marin's lines and brushwork.

John Marin: The etchings and related Oils, Drawings and Watercolors, Cape Split Place, Inc., Addison, Maine, August 1–October 1, 1980.

John Marin's New York, Kennedy Galleries, New York, New York (organizer). Venues: Kennedy Galleries, New York, New York, October 13–November 6, 1981. [exh. cat.]

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, The River and the Bridge Museum of the Borough of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York (organizer). Venues: The River and the Bridge Museum of the Borough of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York, April 12–May 10, 1983.

Selections and Transformations: The Art of John Marin, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (organizer). Venues: National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., January 28–April 15, 1990. [exh. cat.]

Manifest Destiny, Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape.  Terra Foundation  for American Art, Chicago, Illinois and Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Loyola University Museum of Art,  May 17–August 10, 2008. [exh. cat.]

John Marin's Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, January 22–April 17, 2011; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, June 18–September 11, 2011. [exh. cat.]

Art Across America, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; National Museum of Korea, Seoul, South Korea; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venues: National Museum of Korea, Seoul, February 4– May 12, 2013; Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon, South Korea,  June 7–September 1, 2013. [exh. cat.]

America: Painting a Nation,  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (organizers). Venue: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, November 9, 2013–February 8, 2014. [exh. cat]

Icon of Modernism: Representing the Brooklyn Bridge, 1883–1950. Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia (organizer); Venue: Georgia Museum of Art, September 17–December 11, 2016 [exh. cat.]

Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945  Art Institute of Chicago and Terra Foundation for American Art (organizers). Venue:  Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China, September 28, 2018–January 6, 2019.   [exh. cat.]

In the Streets: Modern Life and Urban Experiences in the Art of the United States, 1893-1976 (Pelas ruas: vida moderna e experiências urbanas na arte dos Estados Unidos, 1893–1976). Terra Foundation for American Art and Pinacoteca de São Paulo (organizers). Venue: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, August 27, 2022–January 30, 2023. [exh. cat.]

 

Reich, Sheldon. John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné. 2 vols. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970. Ill. no. 34.23, p. 664 (black & white).

Fine, Ruth E. John Marin. (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art). New York: Abbeville Press, Publishers, 1990. Text p. 158; pl. 1148, p. 158 (color).

Little, Carl. "John Marin's Kepper." Bangor Metro Magazine (April 2007): 26–27, 33. Text p. 33; ill. p. 26–27 (color).

Davidson, Susan, ed. Art in the USA: 300 años de innovación. (exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum Bilbao). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. (Spanish version). Ill. p. 162 (color).

Brownlee, Peter John.  Manifest Destiny / Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. (exh. cat., Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art and Loyola University Museum of Art, 2008.  Text pp. 32, 37 (checklist); ill. fig. 3, p. 32 (color).

Tedeschi, Martha with Kristi Dahm. John Marin's Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism. (exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago and New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. Text pp. 73–74, 127; ill. fig. 62a, p. 73, pl. 53, p. 125 (color).

Wilkin, Karen. Art: John Marin in Chicago(review), The New Criterion 29, 7 (March 2011). Text p. 47.

Art Across America. (exh. cat., National Museum of Korea, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Seoul, South Korea: National Museum of Korea, 2013. (English and Korean versions). Text p. 305; ill. p. 304 (color).

America: Painting a Nation. (exh. cat., Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the National Museum of Korea, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Sydney, Australia: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2013. Text p. 194; ill. cat. no. 68, p. 195, (color).

Gillespie, Sarah Kate, Kimberly Orcutt, Janice Simon, and Meredith Ward. Icon of Modernism: Representing the Brooklyn Bridge, 1883–1950. (exh. cat., Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia). Athens, Georgia: Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 2016. Text p. 69; p. 117, cat. no. 25; ill. p. 117, cat. no. 25 (color).

Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945. (exh. cat. Shanghai Museum with Art Institute of Chicago and Terra Foundation for American Art). Shanghai: Shanghai Museum, 2018. Text p. 134; ill. p. 135 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text p. 269; ill. p. 269 (color).

 Piccoli, Valéria, Fernanda Pitta, and Taylor Poulin. Pelas ruas: vida moderna e experiências urbanas na arte dos Estados Unidos, 1893-1976. (exh. cat., Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and Terra Foundation for American Art). São Paulo, Brazil: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2022. Pl. p. 48 (color).