Tunk Mountains, Maine

1948

John Marin

Painter, American, 1870 - 1953

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The multiple peaks of Tunk Mountain, located near John Marin’s summer home on Cape Split, Maine, were among his favorite landscape subjects during the last phase of his career. He painted them repeatedly in both oil and watercolor between 1939 and 1952, the year before his death. This small oil sketch has the hallmarks of Marin’s late style: expressive calligraphic lines that convey a sense of rhythm and motion, a reduced color palette, and the prominent role of the off-white ground layer.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas board

  • Credit Line

    Gift of John Marin, Jr.

  • Dimensions

    overall: 35.4 x 45.7 cm (13 15/16 x 18 in.)

  • Accession

    1986.54.9

More About this Artwork

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

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Tunk Mountains, Maine, 1948

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

1998

  • Treasures of Light: Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, March-April 1998, no catalogue.

  • American Light: Selections from the National Gallery of Art, Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, May-August 1998, no catalogue.

Bibliography

1970

  • Reich, Sheldon. John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné. Tucson, 1970: no. 48.38.

1992

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

Inscriptions

lower right: Marin 48; across upper center reverse: (Tunk Mountains, Maine) 1948 / oil on canvas board 14 x 18 / SR 48.38; upper right reverse: NBM 2/21/84

Wikidata ID

Q20194216

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