Seeing as how this site is officially big on the paintings, watercolors, and etchings of John Marin, I thought you might enjoy reading a very interesting newspaper story suggesting the possibility of a Marin revival:
John Marin is back in vogue.
Thanks to a new book, two new exhibitions and renewed attention stemming from the 50th anniversary of Marin’s death, interest in the American-born modernist has peaked. His popularity is borne out not only among young art students who trace his path up and down the Maine coast, but also in art auction houses, where even routine Marin paintings fetch millions of dollars these days….
Much of the new fervor is because of the recently opened retrospective “John Marin’s Maine” at the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor. The small exhibition of fewer than two dozen pieces traces Marin’s evolution as a painter from his first trip to Maine in 1914 to his death Oct. 1, 1953.
Colby College, which owns 55 Marin works and dedicates two galleries to their display, has published a long-overdue hardcover catalog of its holdings, “The John Marin Collection at the Colby College Museum of Art.”
And on Nov. 9, the Richard York Gallery in New York City will open “John Marin & Paul Strand: Friends in New England,” an exhibition that explores the dialogue between Marin and his photographer friend. It will be the first time their work has been exhibited together since 1925, when both were included in arts patron Alfred Stieglitz’s “Seven Americans” exhibition.
The only thing lacking is a major-museum retrospective, the last of which the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., mounted in 1990. Marin’s daughter-in-law, Norma Marin, hopes renewed interest will result in a thorough re-examination of the painter’s career.
“I’m obviously a little biased, but I think it’s time,” says Norma Marin, who divides her time between a Manhattan apartment and her home at Cape Split….
And where, pray tell, did this story appear? In today’s Portland Press Herald. That’s Portland, Maine, not the New York Times, thank you very much. To read the whole thing, go here. To purchase a copy of Colby College’s gorgeous Marin catalogue, go here. And to find out why you had to go to a Maine newspaper by way of an arts blog to find out about all this Marin-related activity…well, go figure.