JOHN MARIN
Rainy Day at Meaux.
Watercolor and pencil on cream wove paper, 1908. 390x280 mm; 15¼x11 inches. Signed and dated in watercolor, lower left recto, titled in pencil at the upper edge recto and inscribed "Wet Weather, Meaux" in pencil, verso. Provenance: The artist, from 1908; 291, New York; Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York, with the label; Marlborough Gallery, New York, with the label; private collection, New York. Exhibited: "Exhibition of Sketches in Oil by Alfred Maurer, of Paris and New York and Water-colors by John Marin of Paris and New York," 291, New York, March 30-April 19, 1909, number 7 (as Wet Weather, Meaux); "Exhibition of Watercolors, Oil Paintings, and Etchings by John Marin," Montross Gallery, New York, January 24-February 11, 1922, number 1.Published: Reich, John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné, Tucson, 1970, volume 1, pages 22-23, and volume 2, number 08.8, page 330 (illustrated; as Houses and Bridge at Meaux). Marin (1870-1953) left New York for Paris in the summer of 1905, overlapping with Edward Hopper's own visits there at the time, when the city was under the influence of Late Impressionism and the Fauves were dominating the avant-garde scene (Hopper left for Paris in October 1906 and returned to New York in August 1907). Marin exhibited at the Salone d'Automne several times, along with works by Henri Matisse, Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, as well as alongside the 1907 Paul Cézanne retrospective. Though surrounded by the excitement of the center of the art world, Marin's main influence at this time period was the artist James A. M. Whistler (1834-1903). Marin's color palette, intimacy, and the spontaneity of the "wet-on-wet" technique echoed that of Whistler. Meaux, a town northeast of Paris, dovetailed into Marin's early inclination towards picturesque, decorative subjects synonymous with the previous century. Marin's "wet-on-wet" technique, allowing for the blurring or melting of the subjects as in the current work, enabled him to fulfill the late 19th century tenet of the direct observation of the moment and the importance of conveying the instantaneous mood of the scene.