2012.2
Weehawken Sequence
Artist
John Marin
(Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 - 1953, Cape Split, Maine)
Title
Weehawken Sequence
Creation Date
ca. 1910-1915
Century
early 20th century
Dimensions
12 1/4 in. x 9 1/2 in. (31.12 cm x 24.13 cm)
Object Type
painting
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
oil on canvas board
Credit Line
Museum Purchase
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Accession Number
2012.2
Raised in Weehawken, New Jersey, John Marin studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1905 he traveled to Europe, where he encountered in Paris and other cities many of the leading avant-garde artists of the day. Returning to his hometown five years later, he began a series of paintings and watercolors in which the lessons of Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism take center stage. As exemplified by this painting from the Weehawken Sequence series, recognizable forms have been largely effaced, dissolving into disjointed areas of thickly applied oil paint. Water, smoke, a tree, and an orange sun are hinted at in broad gestural brushstrokes. In this and other works from this period Marin began his first extended exploration of painterly abstraction. The relationship between representational forms and abstraction would prove to be a hallmark of an artistic career that was centered in New York and, beginning in 1914, in Maine.
