Grouping: Pink Ladies c. 1941

John Marin made this watercolour, Grouping: Pink Ladies, with such a light touch, you can almost feel him dabbing at the paper. I imagine Marin outside, sketchbook in hand, quickly capturing a fleeting impression of figures in the landscape. See how the pink of the figures almost blends with the green and blue washes. It’s like he’s trying to capture the light as much as the forms. There's a rhythmic quality to the lines, almost musical, like the figures are part of a larger composition of shapes and colors. The figures are loosely defined, but he indicates their forms with just a few strokes. Marin was really one of the early American modernists; you can see how he’s playing with abstraction, but always grounding it in observation. And this piece—with its loose, gestural brushwork—it feels fresh and immediate, like a quick sketch from life. He was in dialogue with artists such as Picasso and Matisse, but he developed his own, very distinctive vision. I think artists are always in conversation, looking, learning, and riffing off of each other!