John Marin exhibition opens at Schoelkopf Gallery in New York
Schoelkopf Gallery presents a landmark exhibition exploring the immense impact of pioneering American modernist John Marin (1870 – 1953) at the gallery October 24 – December 12, 2025. This marks the first retrospective of Marin’s work in New York since the 1971 presentation at the Whitney Museum of American Art, offering a rare opportunity to view over seventy oils, watercolors, prints, and drawings that define his dynamic career.
The retrospective celebrates the recent formation of the John Marin Foundation and offers, for the first time, many important works from the holdings of the foundation and the artist’s family.
John Marin is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century art, and his work is distinguished by his expressive use of line, form, and color in his depictions of the natural world and urban environments. His innovative approach to abstraction and watercolor as a primary medium earned him significant critical and commercial success during his lifetime, exemplified by Charles Caffin’s review praising a 1913 exhibition of Marin’s work at Alfred Stieglitz’s Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at no. 291 Fifth Avenue. Caffin noted Marin’s early development as a watercolorist following an instrumental 1909–10 sojourn in the Austrian Tyrol.
“[Marin] sees in the forms and color of nature the symbols of its inward workings…He tried to symbol forth…visions of invisible reality, swirling, thrusting, soaring, tottering around him. But it was not until he had spent a summer in the Tyrol, communing with the colossal…phenomena of mountains, forests, and valleys that he began to find himself and learn how to control the magnitude of his impressions,” Charles Caffin, New York American, January 27, 1913.
In 1948, Marin was voted, in a poll of American museum directors, curators, and critics published by Look magazine, “the best painter in America today.” Two years later, Marin was the first American artist honored by a retrospective exhibition representing the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1950.
Significant museum acquisitions by the Tate, London, and other European institutions cemented his international reputation.
The Schoelkopf Gallery retrospective will feature compelling watercolors from Marin’s pivotal trips to the Austrian Tyrol and New Mexico, alongside subjects of his beloved Maine and the greater Northeastern United States.
Further highlights include key oils from Marin’s acclaimed New York street scenes and his post-war Maine landscapes, which anticipated later developments in Abstract Expressionism. His lasting influence is evident in the work of the next generation of artists, including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Arshile Gorky.
“Marin’s distinctive energy and innovative abstraction secure him as one of the most significant figures in modern art,” Andrew Schoelkopf, owner of Schoelkopf Gallery, said. “His legacy continues to resonate with today’s international audience, and it is a privilege to bring these works together for this important retrospective to support the mission of the John Marin Foundation.”
About John Marin
John Marin is a pioneer in modern art, and one of America’s greatest painters. Marin’s contributions to Modernism are widely recognized among an international audience some 75-years after he became the first American to earn a retrospective exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1950. Marin enjoyed continued critical and commercial success throughout his career, which was instigated by his meeting influential gallerist Alfred Stieglitz in 1909—a pivotal moment for the artist as Stieglitz championed Marin’s advancements in abstraction and in watercolor as a medium for many decades.
Perhaps most enticing, however, from the perspectives of both visual iconography and emotional response to the artist’s work, are the bursts of energy with which Marin paints. In an early watercolor from the artist’s first summer in Maine in 1914, or in a late oil painted in 1952, the same fervor is expressed, the same restless and relentless energy with which Marin sought to capture the natural world. It is in the translation of this experience from Marin’s eyes to our own in which the artist’s brilliance and impact is at its best.
About the John Marin Foundation
The mission of the John Marin Foundation is to “advance, promote, and further the understanding and appreciation of John Marin’s life, work, and artistic legacy, and to foster scholarship on John Marin and the artists of the Stieglitz Circle.”
The John Marin Foundation was founded in May of 2010 and is led by Lisa Marin, the artist’s granddaughter, and her children Marie and Alex. The foundation offers works from the Foundation’s collection on loan and manages a significant archive of the artist’s correspondence, records, and materials.
The John Marin Foundation offers museums and other art institutions the opportunity a long-term loan of three years from the Foundation’s significant holdings of artworks by John Marin including oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and etchings.
