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Mills and Footbridge, Meaux

A work made of watercolor with touches of blotting, over traces of graphite, on lightweight, moderately textured, ivory wove paper, laid down on off-white wood-pulp laminate board.
© 2018 Estate of John Marin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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  • A work made of watercolor with touches of blotting, over traces of graphite, on lightweight, moderately textured, ivory wove paper, laid down on off-white wood-pulp laminate board.

Date:

1908

Artist:

John Marin
American, 1870-1953

About this artwork

Marin made repeated trips to Meaux, an old mill town 25 miles northeast of Paris. Here dabs of diluted pink, red, and yellow suggest the movement of clouds, figures, and wind. Marin painted the sky with long, dry brushstrokes, then defined the clouds, working wet-into-wet by dripping in dilute washes of color that dispersed the pigment and yielded dark, feathered lines. After the washes dried, he punctuated the remaining white of the sky with yellow marks to add brightness. Demonstrating an intuitive understanding of how watercolor behaves, as well as a willingness to experiment with unpredictable results, Marin found such manipulations liberating. This was among the 25 watercolors shown at Stieglitz’s 291 in the spring of 1909, the first time the gallery owner exhibited Marin’s work.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

John Marin

Title

Mills and Footbridge, Meaux

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1908

Medium

Watercolor with touches of blotting, over traces of graphite, on lightweight, moderately textured, ivory wove paper, laid down on off-white wood-pulp laminate board

Inscriptions

Signed and datde lower left, in gray watercolor: “Marin 08”; titled left edge, in graphite: “Mills + foot bridge, Meaux”; inscribed verso, center, of secondary support, in graphite: “AS” (underlined); white adhesive label with red variegated border, inscribed, in graphite: “9 / 9”

Dimensions

28.3 × 39.1 cm (11 3/16 × 15 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Alfred Stieglitz Collection

Reference Number

1956.376

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.

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