John Marin by John Marin

From the dust jacket:For a quarter of a century, John Marin was recognized as American's foremost watercolorist. Cleve Gray believes that this judgement, as well as the decline in Marin's reputation after the rise of abstract expressionism, are both inappropriate. For him, John Marin was "America's greatest artist." This book is a booming salvo in the campaign just commencing to reassess the importance of John Marin. More importantly, and more satisfyingly, it is an absorbing and delightful interweaving of Marin's works with his largely unpublished idiosyncratic, deeply insightful writings. "I like to watch the way the elephant walks, the way it puts its foot down with respect for the Earth," said Marin to Gray at their first meeting thirty years ago. That respect characterized Marin's approach: "In painting water make the hand move the way the water moves - same with everything else.""John Marin by John Marin" demonstrates the fidelity with which the artist held to that vision - from the easy and familiar watercolors to the breathtaking oils of the end of his life. It is these latter works on which Gray has placed the prime emphasis, seeing in them Marin's greatest achievement. Most of these paintings and drawings have never been published before. The Foreward urges, and the reproductions demonstrate, that John Marin "did not simply paint a picturesque corner of his New England world. He painted elemental forces, he painted the movement of the earth."An artist in his own right, Cleve Gray has works in the permanent collection of New York's Metropolitan, Whitney, and Guggenheim Museums, and Washington's National Collection. He is the editor of a parallel volume, the widely known "David Smith by David Smith".