The Written Sea

1952

John Marin

Painter, American, 1870 - 1953

Bold strokes and fainter smudges of black, blue, red, brown, and white dance across a white ground in this painting to suggest an abstracted seascape. A long, horizontal black line three-quarters of the way up the canvas suggests the horizon line. An arched line above seems supported by diagonal lines at the left and right edge, to suggest the span of an arched bridge in the distance. Blue squiggles are mostly contained within the center of the composition to suggest water while brown lines and red marks fill the lower corners, perhaps alluding to a beach or shoreline. The artist signed the work with black letters and the date in the lower right corner: “Marin 52.” The frame has been painted white in the corners and tan on each side, with darker brown lines separating the alternating bands of white and light brown.
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John Marin painted The Written Sea in 1952, when he was 82 years old, and it is considered one of the masterpieces of his late career, during which oil painting played a central role in his practice. His tendency toward abstraction by using a calligraphic line to capture a sense of the sea’s movement reflects his awareness of the younger painters of the New York school, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, whose growing reputations would soon come to supplant his own. The painting retains Marin’s original hand-painted frame, designed to be an integral part of the composition that suggests the possibility of engaging in reflective and peaceful thought while looking out from the shoreline toward the tumultuous sea off the Maine coast.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Deborah and Ed Shein

  • Dimensions

    overall: 55.88 x 71.12 cm (22 x 28 in.)
    framed: 68.58 x 83.82 x 3.81 cm (27 x 33 x 1 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    2009.12.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: The Written Sea, 1952

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist's daughter-in-law, Norma B. Marin; (Meredith Ward Fine Art, New York); purchased 2006 by Deborah and Ed Shein, Providence; gift 2009 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1952

  • John Marin Exhibition, The Downtown Gallery, New York, 1952-1953.

1954

  • John Marin, The Philadelphia Art Alliance, 1954, no. 44.

1955

  • John Marin, Art Galleries of the University of California, Los Angeles, 1955-1956, no. 36.

1956

  • John Marin, Arts Council Gallery, London, 1956, no. 29.

1970

  • John Marin, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970, no. 154.

1987

  • Marin in Oil, The Parris Art Museum, Southampton, New York, 1987, no. 53.

1990

  • John Marin, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1990, no. 250, repro.

2000

  • John Marin: The Painted Frame, Richard York Gallery, New York, 2000, no. 34.

2008

  • John Marin: The Late Oils, Adelson Galleries, New York, 2008, no. 12.

2010

  • American Modernism: The Shein Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010-2011, no. 12, repro.

2011

  • John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury, Portland (Maine) Museum of Art; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, 2011-2012, unnumbered catalogue, pl. 57.

Bibliography

1953

  • Faison, Jr., S. Lane. “Art.” The Nation 176 (7 February 1953): 133.

  • Art News 51 (February 1953): 58.

1970

  • Gray, Cleve, ed. John Marin by John Marin. New York, 1970: 171, repro.

  • Reich, Sheldon. John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970, pp. 235-236, no. 52.50.

1971

  • Hughes, Robert. "Fugues in Space." Time (22 February 1971): 62.

1987

  • Smith, Roberta. "Art: John Marin's Oils at an L.I. Museum." The New York Times (14 August 1987).

1988

  • Tuchman, Phyllis. "Another Marin." Art in America 76 (June 1988): 59, repro.

2000

  • Fine, Ruth E. "John Marin, an Art Fully Resolved." In Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000: 351-352, repro.

2010

  • Brock, Charles, Nancy Anderson, and Harry Cooper. American Modernism: The Shein Collection. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010: no. 12, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: Marin 52

Wikidata ID

Q20194614

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