Name/Title
Headed Down East, Cape Split, Maine | John Marin | Watercolor | 1945Description
Watercolor, Headed Down East, Cape Split, Maine by artist John Marin that dates to 1945. Marin was an early American modernist artist who was born in Rutherford, New Jersey in 1870. His mother died almost immediately afterwards and Marin was raised by relatives in Weehawken, New Jersey. He attended the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey for a year, and then practiced becoming an architect before shifting to becoming an artist. From 1899 to 1901, Marin studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and then also at the Art Students League in New York City. In 1905, Marin traveled to Europe where he exhibited his work in the Salon in Paris and where he also got his first exposure to modern art. In 1909, Marin held his first solo exhibition at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 gallery in midtown Manhattan in New York City. Marin's association with Stieglitz would last nearly 40 years. In 1936, Marin had a major show of his career’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Marin first came to the Maine coast in 1914 and initially to the Small Point area of Phippsburg. In the 1920s, he shifted eastward to spending summers in Stonington. A friend of Marin’s, the writer Herbert Seligmann, then told Marin about the Cape Split area in Addison where Seligman’s wife had family. Marin first visited Cape Split in 1933 and a year later he bought a house there next to the Seligmann's. From then on, Marin would spend every summer at Cape Split, while continuing to winter in New Jersey, until he died there in 1953. This Marin watercolor was purchased at auction in 2017 in Texas by two people. In 2022, one of them promised to donate the Seligmann's cottage in Cape Split that they had purchased in the mid-1980s to TIMA. She died shortly afterwards and the cottage came into TIMA's possession. She had wished that the Marin painting would come into TIMA's collections as well. It did in 2024 when TIMA trustees and other supporters purchased it from the other person at a reduced price.
John Marin (American, 1870-1953)
Headed Down East, 1945
Watercolor paper
11-5/8 x 16-3/8 inches (29.5 x 41.6 cm) (sheet)
Signed and dated lower right: Marin 45