John Quinn

American, 1870 - 1924

Explore Selected Works

The Denison Limner, Joseph Steward, Elizabeth Denison, c. 1790, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1953.5.35

Elizabeth Denison

The Denison Limner, Joseph Steward · c. 1790 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1953.5.35

We look down at a wooden tabletop with two playing cards among stacked rectangles and wedges in this vertical, abstract painting. The two playing cards we can make out are a four of diamonds to our left and an ace of clubs to our right. The ace shifts from the traditional black club on a white background to a moss-green club on a black background on the top half. The other rectangles could be upside-down cards, though they are larger in scale than the face-up playing cards. These shapes are made with pea-green dots on a black background, areas of textured silvery olive green, and sky blue. The cards lie on a mostly complete corner of a table painted with wood grain, but triangles of wood grain, green polka dots, and blue intersect and bisect each other. A wide fern-green form with rounded lobes hanging from it fills the upper left corner, perhaps representing a tree. The area to its right is filled with baby blue edged with white. The artist signed the lower right, “Juan Gris.”
Juan Gris, Ace of Clubs and Four of Diamonds, 1915, oil on board, Gift of Robert and Mercedes Eichholz, 2014.17.12

Ace of Clubs and Four of Diamonds

Juan Gris · 1915 · oil on board ·  Accession ID  2014.17.12

Gwen John, Seated Girl in a High Collared Cloak, 1910s, gouache and watercolor on wove paper, Gift of Mimi and Sanford Feld, 2005.143.11

Seated Girl in a High Collared Cloak

Gwen John · 1910s · gouache and watercolor on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2005.143.11

Gwen John, The Convalescent, c. 1915-1925, oil on canvas, Paul Mellon Collection, 1994.59.15

The Convalescent

Gwen John · c. 1915-1925 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1994.59.15

Maurice de Vlaminck, The Old Port of Marseille, 1913, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.225

The Old Port of Marseille

Maurice de Vlaminck · 1913 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.225

We look across river at a bridge with a city skyline beyond in this stylized, horizontal landscape, which is painted entirely with broad, visible brushstrokes in vivid, saturated colors. The river spans nearly the width of the canvas, and the riverbank is lined to our left with a row of several buildings between us and the bridge. Those buildings are outlined with royal blue and filled in with mostly flat areas of color in coral pink, mint green, tangerine orange, and pinkish tan. Letters across the top of the building farthest from us reads “BREVER.” Eight boats are tied up at the foot of the buildings. The pointed hulls of three extend into the scene from the lower left corner, painted in marigold orange and outlined in cobalt blue. Five more boats, with rounded prows and hulls and painted with lapis blue and muted aqua, line up like a row of empty shoes. The bridge runs from behind the tallest building to our left across and off the canvas, and is painted with deep lapis blue with crimson-red Xes crisscrossing the span to suggest trestles. The front faces of the pilings below are also highlighted with red. The river fills most of the bottom half of the painting. The water to our left is painted as a field of coral pink with a few, short horizontal baby and cobalt-blue strokes, suggesting reflections of the boats and a bridge piling. A narrow band of kiwi green and sky blue lines the pink field to our right. Next to it, the water is painted as short, horizontal, disconnected strokes and dots mostly in bumblebee yellow with some strokes in bubblegum pink and pale burnt orange, all against the off white of the canvas below. The final zone, to our right, is more densely painted with short dashes in indigo, turquoise, and aqua blue. Beyond the bridge, the skyline is painted in silhouette with spiky spires to our left in mint green and a mass of shorter buildings in periwinkle blue to our right. Four clouds of pale yellow billow off the bridge in front of the skyline. The sky above is painted with short and long vertical strokes of butter yellow, rose pink, pale orange, and a few areas of watermelon pink. The artist signed the work with cobalt-blue paint near the lower left corner: “a derain.”
André Derain, Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1906, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.3

Charing Cross Bridge, London

André Derain · 1906 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.3

Gwen John, Street at Night, Meudon, 1910s, watercolor and gouache over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Mimi and Sanford Feld, 2005.143.12

Street at Night, Meudon

Gwen John · 1910s · watercolor and gouache over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2005.143.12

Bibliography

1924

  • [Obituary of John Quinn]. New York Times (29 July 1924): 15:3.

1926

  • Watson, Forbes. "The John Quinn Collection [Parts I and II]." The Arts 9 (January 1926): 5-22.

  • Watson, Forbes. "The John Quinn Collection, Part III." The Arts 9 (February 1926): 76-92.

  • John Quinn, 1870-1925 [sic], Collection of Paintings, Water Colors, Drawings & Sculpture. Foreward by Forbes Watson. Huntington, NY, 1926.

1978

  • Young, Mahonri Sharp. "The Sporting Thing to Do." Apollo 108 (September 1978): 196-197.

  • Zilczer, Judith. "The noble buyer": John Quinn, patron of the avant-garde. Exh. cat. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 1978.

1979

  • Zilczer, Judith. "The Dispersal of John Quinn's Collection." The Connoisseur 202 (September 1979): 22-27.

1980

  • Reid, B.L. The Man From New York; John Quinn and His Friends. New York, 1968.

1986

  • Hahnloser-Ingold, Margrit. "Collecting Matisses of the 1920s in the 1920s," in Matisse: The Early Years in Nice. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986: 246.