John Marin

John Marin‘s Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism
Art Institute of Chicago
January 23 through April 17, 2011
In 1948, a nationwide survey pronounced John Marin (1870-1953) “America’s Number 1 artist.” Marin’s exuberant and improvisational paintings are recognized today as critical to the evolution of American modernism. Less well known, though, is the extent to which Marin pushed the limits of the watercolor medium, establishing for a new generation of artists its inherent suitability to avant-garde expression. The Art Institute of Chicago has organized a major exhibition that is the first to explore this idea through close technical analysis of the artist’s watercolor practice: John Marin’s Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism, which will be on view in the museum’s Jean and Steven Goldman Prints and Drawings Galleries in the Richard and Mary L. Gray Wing (Galleries 124-127) from January 23 through April 17, 2011.