Currently not on view
Lobster Smack Passing Through,
1923
John Marin, 1870–1953; born Rutherford, NJ; died Addison, ME
x1941-157
From 1914 until his death, Marin spent long periods living and painting in Maine, which he described as "one fierce, relentless, cruel, beautiful, fascinating, hellish, and all other ish’es, place." In this forcefully abstract and direct watercolor, he captures his impressions of a wave-tossed fishing boat off the rocky coast of Stonington and Deer Isle, where he spent the summer of 1923 producing hundreds of watercolors. Working quickly, Marin employed a battery of marks—ranging from broadly brushed patches of color to tottering jagged black lines—to create the feeling of movement and countermovement in the churning ocean. The triangular yellow channel marker on the right indicates that the lobster boat is leaving the harbor and heading to sea.
Information
Title
Lobster Smack Passing Through
Dates
1923
Maker
Medium
Recto: watercolor and black chalk with traces of blue pastel
Verso: watercolor and black chalk
Dimensions
34 × 42.5 cm (13 3/8 × 16 3/4 in.)
frame: 57 × 65.5 × 2.8 cm (22 7/16 × 25 13/16 × 1 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr.
Object Number
x1941-157
Signatures
Signed and dated, lower right: Marin 23
Inscription
in graphite, on verso across center: No 1 [crossed out] Lobster Smack | Passing Through
Culture
Type
Materials
Subject
Montross Gallery, New York; The Intimate Gallery, New York; Frank Jewett Mather Jr.
- Recent water colors by John Marin: consisting of scenes painted in the region about Stonington, Deer Isle, Maine, in 1923, and several painted in 1922-23 in New York and the Palisades on the Hudson : February 16th to March 8th, 1924, (New York: Montross Gallery, 1924).
- F. J. Mather, "American paintings at Princeton University," Record of the Museum of Historic Art, Princeton University 2, no. 2 (1943): p. 2-15., pp. 11-12 (illus.)
- Sheldon Reich, John Marin: a stylistic analysis and catalogue raisonné, (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1970)., Vol. 2: p. 517, no. 23.8 (illus.) [as Boat and Sea, Maine or Lobster Smack Passing Through]
- John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 178, cat. no. 42; p. 179 (illus.); p. 317, checklist no. 440
