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Lot Essay
In 1948, renowned modern art critic Clement Greenberg declared, “If it is not beyond doubt that [John] Marin is the greatest living American painter, he certainly has to be taken into account when we ask who is.” (Art and Culture: Critical Essays, Boston, Massachusetts, 1961, p. 181) That February, Look magazine surveyed 68 curators, critics and museum directors to select the ten best painters in America; John Marin was again declared “Artist No. 1.” Painted with a bravura of technique and form, Lobster Boat, Cape Split, Maine demonstrates the exquisite balance between elements of abstraction and realism that earned Marin distinction as one of the most venerated American artists of the twentieth century.
Beginning in the summer of 1914, Marin escaped the bustle of New York City every summer to spend the warmer months painting the rocky shoreline of Maine. For the first few summers, he stayed in the Small Point Harbor area, where he purchased "Marin Island." Despite being virtually uninhabitable due to lack of a fresh water resource, the island served as a retreat for the artist where he could paint and fish in a remote and primitive location. During the 1920s, the Marin family started to venture further north to Stonington, Maine, but it was not until 1933, at the suggestion of author and journalist Herbert J. Seligmann, that he spent his first summer on Cape Split in Addison. There he chose to buy the small cottage where he would continue to summer for the remainder of his career and ultimately spend the final days of his life.
It was in Addison where Marin found his mature style. In the late 1920s, the artist revisited the practice of oil painting after several years of concentrating primarily on his work in watercolor. Having gained a nuanced knowledge of both media, Marin combined the benefits of both into a distinct working style all his own. Through the next decade, as Klaus Kertess writes, “Marin would unite the medium of oil with the subject of the ocean to create deeply moving medleys of paint. The rhythmically charged flatness and openness, the willed surrender to paint’s liquidity, and the entrancement with the workings of nature so crucial to Marin become totally compatible and congruent with the movements of the ocean. Its incalculable repertoire of flux, flow, and reflectiveness moving into and out of flatness would bring Marin into full mastery of his newly favored medium…In oil, Marin immersed himself not in its ambiances but in the nature of the ocean itself.” (Marin in Oil, exhibition catalogue, Southampton, New York, 1987, p. 46)
In Lobster Boat, Cape Split, Maine, Marin particularly emphasizes the unpredictability and unruliness of the ocean’s nature. Kertess explains, “Marin’s Maine is not a hospitable bather’s resort…The Maine coast invited drama more than dalliance.” (Marin in Oil, p. 47) Indeed, in the present work from 1938, Marin utilizes forceful, expressive brushwork to create the impression of set after set of strong waves, as well as the lobster boat that dramatically intersects them and dominates the foreground. A sailboat and distant rocky shore balance out the rest of the composition. With an amalgam of thick and thin layers of dark and light hues, Marin recreates in his unique style the energy and effervescence of the sea. Lobster Boat, Cape Split, Maine demonstrates Marin at the height of his abilities—conveying his unique and highly-personalized sensibility to nature that set him apart from his contemporaries and garnered him distinction as one of America's leading Modernists.
Beginning in the summer of 1914, Marin escaped the bustle of New York City every summer to spend the warmer months painting the rocky shoreline of Maine. For the first few summers, he stayed in the Small Point Harbor area, where he purchased "Marin Island." Despite being virtually uninhabitable due to lack of a fresh water resource, the island served as a retreat for the artist where he could paint and fish in a remote and primitive location. During the 1920s, the Marin family started to venture further north to Stonington, Maine, but it was not until 1933, at the suggestion of author and journalist Herbert J. Seligmann, that he spent his first summer on Cape Split in Addison. There he chose to buy the small cottage where he would continue to summer for the remainder of his career and ultimately spend the final days of his life.
It was in Addison where Marin found his mature style. In the late 1920s, the artist revisited the practice of oil painting after several years of concentrating primarily on his work in watercolor. Having gained a nuanced knowledge of both media, Marin combined the benefits of both into a distinct working style all his own. Through the next decade, as Klaus Kertess writes, “Marin would unite the medium of oil with the subject of the ocean to create deeply moving medleys of paint. The rhythmically charged flatness and openness, the willed surrender to paint’s liquidity, and the entrancement with the workings of nature so crucial to Marin become totally compatible and congruent with the movements of the ocean. Its incalculable repertoire of flux, flow, and reflectiveness moving into and out of flatness would bring Marin into full mastery of his newly favored medium…In oil, Marin immersed himself not in its ambiances but in the nature of the ocean itself.” (Marin in Oil, exhibition catalogue, Southampton, New York, 1987, p. 46)
In Lobster Boat, Cape Split, Maine, Marin particularly emphasizes the unpredictability and unruliness of the ocean’s nature. Kertess explains, “Marin’s Maine is not a hospitable bather’s resort…The Maine coast invited drama more than dalliance.” (Marin in Oil, p. 47) Indeed, in the present work from 1938, Marin utilizes forceful, expressive brushwork to create the impression of set after set of strong waves, as well as the lobster boat that dramatically intersects them and dominates the foreground. A sailboat and distant rocky shore balance out the rest of the composition. With an amalgam of thick and thin layers of dark and light hues, Marin recreates in his unique style the energy and effervescence of the sea. Lobster Boat, Cape Split, Maine demonstrates Marin at the height of his abilities—conveying his unique and highly-personalized sensibility to nature that set him apart from his contemporaries and garnered him distinction as one of America's leading Modernists.