John Marin
23 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches (framed)
Provenance
Ex. Coll: Paul Rosenfeld (author & cultural critic), New York; gift to Leo Ornstein (pianist and Futurist composer) on the occasion of his marriage, c. 1918; by descent in the family; to private collection, Rhode Island.
John Marin
(1872-1953)
Tree, Castorland, New York
Watercolor on paper
16 ¼ x 14 inches
23 ½ x 21 ½ inches framed
signed and dated (at lower right): Marin 13
Framed to museum conservation standards with a gold beveled silk mat and a c. 1940 grey washed frame and tru-vue museum glass.
Ex. Coll: Paul Rosenfeld (author & cultural critic), New York; Gift to Leo Ornstein (pianist & futurist composer) on the occasion of his marriage c. 1918; by descent in the family; to private collection, Rhode Island.
The year John Marin painted Tree, Castorland,, was seminal in the development of American Art. The 1913 Armory Show exposed the broader American public to the avant-garde art of Europeans Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp, Wassily Kandinsky and Henri Matisse as well as Americans, Oscar Bluemner, Marsden Hartley and John Marin for the first time. The Armory Show set the course of 20th century art in America and created a market for works by Modernist painters.
In Tree, Castorland, Marin combines vibrant fauve-inspired colors with a deep love of nature, particularly trees. Marin felt trees had a deeply spiritual quality to them, and trees are central to Marin's work in the same way that Maine and New York City are.