Shack in the Meadowlands (verso) c. 1900

John Marin's "Shack in the Meadowlands (verso)" is a pencil drawing that captures the essence of the New Jersey landscape around the turn of the 20th century. The artist's use of loose, gestural lines and subtle shading evokes a sense of the windswept grasses and distant buildings, with the simple structures taking on a sense of monumentality in the vastness of the landscape. This drawing is a classic example of Marin's early work, a period where he began to explore the use of abstraction and simplification in representing the natural world.