Marie Jane Hughes Marin (Mrs. John Marin)

c. 1944

John Marin

Painter, American, 1870 - 1953

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John Marin painted this portrait of his wife, Marie Jane Hughes Marin, approximately one year before her death in February 1945. Since their marriage in 1912 she had accompanied her husband on his painting trips and was his constant companion. Marin had only sporadically painted portraits of friends and family members until the mid-1940s, when he began to take portraiture more seriously. In a letter of 1953 he wrote that “the painted portrait has held for a thousand years--I feel it will have Value in the years to come--that mankind will eventually--is now beginning to get tired and sick of the abstract--the nonobjective--that old subject object forms will come forth again.”

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of John Marin, Jr.

  • Dimensions

    overall: 71.1 x 55.8 cm (28 x 21 15/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1986.54.8

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Marie Jane Hughes Marin (Mrs. John Marin), c. 1944

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 [1870-1953]; his estate; by inheritance to his son, John C. Marin, Jr. [1914-1988], Cape Split, Maine; gift 1986 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1944

  • John Marin: Paintings - 1944, An American Place, New York, 1944-1945, no. 11, as Portrait: Mrs. John Marin.

Bibliography

1970

  • Reich, Sheldon. John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné. Tucson, 1970: no. 44.15.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 233, repro.

Inscriptions

upper center on canvas over top stretcher bar reverse: SR 44.15 Mrs. John Marin - ca. 1944; upper right on canvas over top stretcher bar reverse: NBM 1/13/84; center of canvas reverse: Property of / John Marin / Jr.

Wikidata ID

Q20193557

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