Weehawken, New Jersey

Unified by somber blue-gray washes painted wet-into-wet and enlivened by small touches of bright, warm color, this sheet recalls watercolors Marin painted of the Seine River. Imbued with the quiet mood of a Whistler nocturne, this watercolor also utilizes an important motif from Chinese painting: the artist suggested the spiky branches of a bare tree with strokes of black watercolor, gracefully balancing and screening the view of the distant skyline. The riverbank at Weehawken was a site Marin knew from his youth; that he was drawn back to it for this perspective on the metropolis bears out his statement, “As for subject matter—I go places intimate to me and in those intimate places I start to paint my painting.”