Early Abstract and Modernist Painting

John Marin (1870–1953)

Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline, 1934

Oil on canvas board, 14 x 17 3/4 in. (35.6 x 45.1 cm). Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund, 2006.1

One of America’s most popular modernists, John Marin fashioned a personal vocabulary for expressing the vitality of urban landscapes in both oils and watercolors. Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline presents the city as an assemblage of colors and shapes that suggest the energy of the metropolis. His reduction of familiar forms to their essential lines and planes indicates an indebtedness to cubism that is personalized by his use of bright colors and dynamic brushwork. Trained as an architect, Marin frequently used devices within his compositions to frame or enclose forms. The image presents a series of frames-within-the-frame: the black outlines around the forms of the bridge, tugboat, and sailboat contain and control the explosive energy of the artist’s lines and brushwork. To distinguish this work as an oil painting (rather than a watercolor), Marin applied a thin black wash to the simple wood molding of the frame and added elongated dabs of white at regular intervals.

Learn more about this painting on the Terra Foundation website.

Early Abstract and Modernist Painting

Joseph Stella (1877–1946)

Telegraph Poles with Buildings, 1917

Max Weber (1881–1961)

Construction, 1915

Patrick Henry Bruce (1881–1936)

Peinture, 1917–18

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943)

Painting No. 50, 1914–15

Arthur Dove (1880–1946)

Nature Symbolized #3: Steeple and Trees, 1911–12

Arthur Dove (1880–1946)

Sails, 1911–12

Charles Demuth (1883–1935)

Welcome to Our City, 1921

Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1880–1953)

Boy with Cow, 1921

Stuart Davis (1892–1964)

Super Table, 1925

Helen Torr (1886–1967)

Purple and Green Leaves, 1927

Arthur Dove (1880–1946)

Boat Going through Inlet, c. 1929

John Graham (1881–1961)

The Green Chair, 1928

John Storrs (1885–1956)

Politics, 1931

Ernest Lawson (1873–1939)

Brooklyn Bridge, 1917–20

John Marin (1870–1953)

Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline, 1934

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986)

Red Amaryllis, 1937

Albert Eugene Gallatin (1881–1952)

Room Space, 1937–38

Milton Avery (1885–1965)

Adolescence, 1947

George Tooker (1920–2011)

Highway, 1953

Ed Paschke (1939–2004)

Topcat Boy, 1970

Beauford Delaney (1901–1979)

Untitled (Village Street Scene), 1948

Philip Evergood (1901–1973)

Passing Show, 1951

Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946)

Kalounna in Frogtown, 1986