In 1920 John Marin bought a seven-room house in Cliffside Park, a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, within easy commuting distance of New York City. Alternating with the summer views he produced annually in Maine, Marin painted winter views of his residential neighborhood covered in snow. Buildings with Snowbank, Cliffside, New Jersey, depicts the garage behind Marin’s house and parts of other adjacent properties. The Dutch-style roof and three windows rising directly above the garage also appear, from the elevated vantage point of Marin’s studio, in House with Dutch Roof. Trained as an architect early in his career, Marin was adept at rendering urban cityscapes such as New York. In Buildings with Snowbank, Cliffside, New Jersey and House with Dutch Roof he turned his expert eye to the suburban architecture of New Jersey. These works date from shortly before the Great Depression, when Marin took a renewed interest in experimenting with oil paints that would continue for the rest of his career. Their small scale and spontaneous technique is similar to many of his celebrated watercolors, the medium with which Marin is most closely associated.