AFA 18th Anniversary

2018 Antiques & Fine Art 127 Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work opens January 26, 2018 and runs through April 22, 2018, at the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas (www.arkansasartscenter.org). A catalogue of the complete John Marin Collection at the Arkansas Arts Center by Ann Prentice Wagner, Josephine White Rodgers of the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and other authorities, accompanies the exhibition. All images shown here are copyright Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Estate of John Marin and are reproduced with permission. Ann Prentice Wagner is curator of drawings at the Arkansas Arts Center and curator of Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work. 1. John Marin, The Selected Writings of John Marin , ed. Dorothy Norman (New York: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1949), 92. 2. Ruth Fine and National Gallery of Art (U.S.), John Marin (Washington, D.C.: New York: National Gallery of Art; Abbeville Press, 1990), 75-89, 289–290. 3. Norval White, Elliot Willensky, and Fran Leadon, AIA Guide to New York City (Oxford University Press, 2010), 43. 4. John Marin, John Marin by John Marin , ed. Cleve Gray (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970), 72. 5. Fine and National Gallery of Art, 229. 6. Ibid, 189. John Marin (1870–1953), The Three Pines, Blueberry Barrens, Washington County, Maine, 1952. Graphite and pastel on tracing paper, 8 ⁄ x 11½ inches. Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection; Gift of Norma B. Marin (2013.018.222). During the summers, Marin and his family were devoted New Englanders. The artist enjoyed such characteristic Maine landscapes as the blueberry barrens that cover the hills in Washington County, not far from the Marin summer home on Cape Split. One of the latest works in the Arts Center’s Marin collection is this drawing of three pine trees in a blueberry barren. As former National Gallery curator and authority on John Marin, Ruth Fine, mentions in her 1990 book on the artist, he seemed to identify with trees, particularly Maine evergreens. Usually he looked to lone trees, but here he gathered three trees together, like the members of his family or a group of friends. They stand companionably, spare and gnarled, but touching each other and full of life. 6 text continued from page 120