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Patches of raw canvas, daubs of thick paint and frenzied brushwork convey the turbulence of the stormy sea.

Marin is best known for his watercolors, but his oils also exude the dynamic power of nature.

The artist created landscapes inspired by cubism, and a sensitivity to nature's rhythms.

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John Marin's approach to landscape was inspired by the angularity and flattened space of Cubism and by his great sensitivity to nature's rhythms. He developed his own style of rapid brushwork, which captured the spirit of the moment and the dynamics of a ceaselessly transforming world.

In Hurricane, Marin conveys an immediate feeling of the ocean's turbulent nature. Though he painted this canvas from his summer home on the coast of Maine, his depiction of wind, water, and clouds is not tied to any specific locale. The intimate qualities of nature and the ever-changing characteristics of weather also played a vital role in the work of Alfred Stieglitz, the photographer and art dealer who gave Marin his first important exhibition; Marin was a core member of Stieglitz's circle of avant-garde artists. In a letter to Caroline Marmon Fesler, whose estate donated this work to the IMA, Stieglitz reports that an English sailor, standing before this painting in his gallery, had said it was the first time he had "really seen a sea painted as the sea really is."

Marin is best known for his watercolors, but Hurricane demonstrates the effectiveness of his work in oils. In the 1930s, he developed an interest in oil painting and began to concentrate on the expressive qualities of brushwork and the ruggedness the medium made possible.

The sea that I paint may not be the sea, but it is a sea, not an abstraction.
-John Marin, 1949

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John Marin

Hurricane, 1944

oil on canvas

25 x 30 in.

Estate of Mrs. James W. Fesler

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John Marin grew up in Weehawken, New Jersey and attended the Stevens Institute of Technology before studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine arts in Philadelphia.  He also studied at the Art Students League of New York and traveled to Paris and traveled around Europe for six years painting in Holland, Belgium, England and Italy. It was there he developed his lifetime interest in the watercolor medium under the influence of James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s watercolors.  Alfred Stieglitz, the dealer who trumpeted modernism, gave Marin his first one-man exhibition in New York. The association between dealer and artist lasted nearly forty- years.  Stieglitz’s gallery exhibitions introduced Marin to Cubism and German Expressionism which helped him develop his expressionistic compositions.  In the 1930s Marin began to work primarily in oils that captured the essence rather than the reality of the scene.

Marin’s art displayed sensitivity to nature’s rhythms. Although he is best known for his watercolors, Marin was equally powerful working oil. His dynamic style has an extra element of ruggedness in his oils, where the patches of raw canvas and daubs of thick paint convey an immediate impression of nature.  In Hurricane, his frenzied brushwork suggests the turbulence of the sea.  Marin painted this canvas from his summer home on the coat of Maine, but his sense of wind, water, and clouds is not tied to any specific locale. When Mrs. Fesler purchased Hurricane, Stieglitz wrote congratulating her on the acquisition: “The Hurricane is certainly a masterpieces, Every one agrees with every one else as to that….You will realize more and more as you will live with the Marins what they signify – Endless wonder.  As all true art is ever a source of increasing Wonder.  Music in its many manifestations.”

Reference

Sam Hunter and Timothy A. Eaton.  Expression and Meaning: The Marine Paintings of John Marin, Austin, Texas: Eaton Fine Arts, 1999. ISBN-13: 978-0965581950