Saint Paul's, with Other Buildings

Prints and Drawings

1911

John Marin
American, 1870-1953

Here Marin used a rich purple wash for the ornate spire of Trinity Church. He flattened and compressed the spaces between the structure and the tall buildings visible behind it, including the domed New York World Building on Park Row. He exploited the rough surface of the paper with his soft pencil, keeping his touch light, and after painting with watercolor, he added further marks in graphite for detail. The broken pencil lines and the rounded shapes created by Marin’s brushwork convey kinetic energy and vibrancy.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: John Marin
Title: Saint Paul's, with Other Buildings
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 1911
Medium: Watercolor and graphite on lightweight, moderately textured, off-white wove paper
Inscriptions: Signedlower left, in graphite: "Marin"; inscribed verso, upper left, in graphite: "8"
Dimensions: 24.5 × 20.1 cm (9 11/16 × 7 15/16 in.)
Credit Line: Alfred Stieglitz Collection
Reference Number: 1956.381
Copyright: © 2018 Estate of John Marin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Sheldon Reich, John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné (Tucson, 1970), p. 358, no. 11.6 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, “John Marin’s Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism,” Jan. 19-Apr. 17, 2011, pp. 110, 112, 114, pl. 37; traveled to the High Museum, Atlanta, June 26-Sept. 11, 2011.

Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946), New York [stamped, lower right, in purple: “COLLECTION/ AS”]; Stieglitz Estate (Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), executor); given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1956.

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