About this artwork
In 1917 Marin painted some of the most abstract watercolors of his career, influenced in part by an exhibition that year of Georgia O’Keeffe’s watercolors of simplified natural forms. In this and related works, the artist developed a nontraditional technique: he manipulated charcoal with a rag, which he rubbed and wiped through a semidry charcoal wash. Painting a mixture of powdered charcoal and dilute black watercolor over pale washes, he wiped horizontal and circular marks to suggest rock formations. The charcoal particles in the wash clumped as the wash dried, leaving a gritty pattern as they settled into the valleys of the textured paper. Marin’s choice of a stepped frame enhances the dynamism of water washing across rocks.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- John Marin
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Title
- Ocean and Rocks
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1917
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Medium
- Watercolor with charcoal and stumping, and charcoal wash, on thick, slightly textured, ivory wove paper (lower and right edges trimmed), in original frame
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Dimensions
- 42 × 49.5 cm (16 9/16 × 19 1/2 in.)
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Credit Line
- Alfred Stieglitz Collection
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Reference Number
- 1949.556
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Copyright
- © 2018 Estate of John Marin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
