J o h n -M a r i n-- 1 8 7 0 -1 9 5 3


Pont Neuf, Paris = 1905, Etching.

Zigrosser 11. Edition c. 25. Signed and titled in pencil. Signed and dated in the plate, lower left. Numbered A -2 in the bottom left margin. Scarce.

Image size 7 7/8 x 5 7/16 inches (200 x 138 mm); sheet size 10 1/4 x 7 7/8 inches (260 x 200 mm).

A fine, atmospheric impression, with selectively wiped plate tone, on cream wove Japan paper; the full sheet with margins (1 1/8 to 1 3/8 inches). Slight surface soiling in the margins, otherwise in excellent condition.

Marin's first published print. Scarce.

"Here Marin’s lightly inked and carefully wiped plate tone produces a soft impressionist image, as the scene might have looked in early morning mist of the river Seine, reflecting the influence of the great works of French impressionism and Whistler’s now famous printmaking explorations in his Amsterdam series. But, according to Zigrosser, in contrast to Whistler, Marin’s lines were ‘nervous and passionate and occasionally too roving and restless to be realistically convincing.’ One can see hints in Marin’s architectural renderings such as St. Germain-des-Prés of the beginnings of an evolution toward modernism, which blossomed only a few years later.” —Harris Schrank

Collections: Cleveland Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

SOLD

Pont Neuf, Paris, River Seine, Bridge, Impressionism, Modernism, Mist, Boat

Bridge, Venice = 1907, Etching.

Zigrosser 59. Edition 30 plus 5 to 10 on thin Japan. Signed in pencil. Signed and dated Marin 07 in the plate, lower center; titled Le Pont Venezia in the plate lower right.

Image size 5 x 7 1/16 inches (128 x 178 mm); sheet size 6 5/8 x 8 11/16 inches (169 x 221 mm).

A superb, delicately inked impression, on antique cream laid paper, the full sheet with margins (5/8 to 3/4 inches); light bleaching to the paper within the original mat opening otherwise in excellent condition.

Printed by George Haskell. Illustrated in Saulnier.

Collections: Art Institute of Chicago, Cleveland Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

$2500.


Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 (Swaying) = 1913, Etching.

Zigrosser 112. Edition c. 12 (Steiglitz); 1924, unknown but small (New Republic). Signed in pencil. Signed and dated 13 and B.B. 6 in the plate, lower left.

Image size 10 5/8 X 8 3/4 inches (270 x 222 mm); sheet size 14 x 10 7/8 inches (356 x 276 mm).

A superb, richly inked impression, with selectively wiped platetone; on warm cream wove paper, with full margins (1 to 1 5/8 inches), in excellent condition. Very scarce.

"First published by Alfred Stieglitz in 1913, a small number of later impressions were printed as the work was slated to be included in the New Republic portfolio Six American Etchings. Only a few impressions were pulled before it was replaced by Marin’s Downtown, the El. Carl Zigrosser was unaware that Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 (Swaying) was ever included in the Set when he wrote the Marin catalogue; later, when he learned of it's initial inclusion, he suggested that perhaps the plate had broken early in the run, and this hypothesis has been repeated through the years. But this is unlikely since the printer, Peter Platt (1859–1934), America’s most distinguished artists’ printer of the period, worked alone, and he was hardly prone to breaking copper plates. A more likely explanation is that Downtown the El was substituted because it is about the same size as the other prints in the set, whereas the Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 print is much larger; a plate of the same size would facilitate the printing of a large edition. Each of the plates was purchased by the NewRepublic, and the paper’s records for 1924–5, as well as the plates used for the set have been lost or destroyed." –Harris Schrank

Exhibited and reproduced: The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, Stephen Coppel, The British Museum, 2008.

Collections: The British Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art (Stieglitz Collection), Museum of Modern Art (Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller).

Price On Request

Brooklyn Bridge, modernist etching, New Republic portfolio

Downtown, The El = 1921, Etching.

Zigrosser 134. Edition 30, plus c. 500 for the New Republic in 1924. Signed in pencil. Signed and dated in the plate, lower right.

Image size 6 7/8 x 8 3/4 inches (175 x 222 mm); sheet size 11 x 14 inches (279 x 356 mm).

A fine, richly-inked impression, with selectively wiped plate tone; on buff wove paper, with full margins (2 1/8 to 2 5/8 inches); slightly light struck within a previous mat opening otherwise in excellent condition.

In 1924, this etching and five other originals by American printmakers were offered as a portfolio with a year's subscription to the New Republic. This impression from the New Republic portfolio.

Exhibited and reproduced: The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, Stephen Coppel, The British Museum, 2008.

Illustrated in A Treasury of American Prints, Simon and Schuster, 1939; One Hundred Prints from 100 Artists of the Art Students League of New York, 1875-1975, Art Students League, New York,1975; A Century of American Printmaking: 1880-1980, James Watrous, University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.

Collections: Ackland Art Museum; Allentown Art Museum; Binghamton University Art Museum; The British Museum; Brooklyn Museum (New Republic); Dallas Museum of Art (New Republic); Detroit Insitute of Arts (New Republic); Metropolitan Museum of Art (Steiglitz Collection); Milwaukee Art Museum; Museum of Modern Art (Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller); National Gallery of Art; New York Public Library (New Republic); Philadelphia Museum of Art (Master Set); University of Nebraska (New Republic); Princeton University (New Republic); Smith College (New Republic); Yale University Art Gallery.

$4500.


Sailboat = 1932, Etching.

Zigrosser 155. An impression from the first edition of 30. Signed and dated 32 in pencil; signed and dated Marin 32 in the plate, lower left.

Image size 6 7/8 x 9 1/4 inches (175 x 235 mm); sheet size 8 3/4 x 11 9/16 inches (222 x 294 mm).

A superb, richly inked impression, with burr in the heavily etched lines and delicate overall plate tone, on off-white laid paper; with margins (1 7/8 to 3 1/4 inches), in excellent condition.

A scarce, early impression before the steel facing of the plate, prior to the American Artists Group unsigned edition of approximately 200.

A personal favorite of Marin's, another impression of the print, signed and dedicated to Georgia O'Keefe, bears the artist's notation, "A Beaut." Cover illustration of the catalogue raisonné, The Complete Etchings of John Marin by Carl Zigrosser. Zigrosser pays special tribute to this work on page 19 of the catalog raisonné: "...the scene becomes alive by power of his creative imagination. The artist has stripped away all extraneous detail and set down, in the white heat of his intuition, only the very essence of things."

Reproduced: Zigrosser, Artist in America. Alred A. Knopf, 1942; Prints and Their Creators, A World History, Carl Zigrosser, Crown Publishers Inc., 1974.

Collections: Art Institute of Chicago (gift of Georgia O’Keeffe); Addison Gallery, Andover (AAG); Baltimore Museum of Art (AAG); Metropolitan Museum of Art, (Steiglitz Collection); Philadelphia Museum of Art (AAG); Smith College (AAG).

SOLD


The Lobster Fisherman = 1938, Etching.

Zigrosser 172. Edition 125. Signed and numbered 64/125 in pencil. Signed and annotated in the plate, lower right; titled, lower left.

Image size 8 7/8 x 7 inches (225 x 178 mm); sheet size inches 12 5/8 x 9 1/4 inches (321 x 235 mm).

A superb impression with rich burr and overall plate tone, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 to 1 1/8 inches); in excellent condition.

Printed by David Strang. Included with the published portfolio of reproductions of Marin drawings by Twin Editions, 1950, in the original cloth-bound portfolio.

Collections: Philadelphia Museum of Art.

$2800.


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