Recognized as the greatest American watercolorist since Winslow Homer, John Marin enjoyed widespread acclaim at the close of his life. ARTnews published this portrait of the seventy-six-year-old artist to accompany a review of a 1947 retrospective of his work at Boston's Institute of Modern Art. Pictured playing the piano at his seaside cottage in Cape Split, Maine, Marin projects a melancholy air. Despite the public recognition—one year after this exhibition a Look magazine survey named him the foremost American painter—Marin was saddened by a number of personal tragedies. Both his wife, Marie, and his longtime friend Alfred Stieglitz had died within a year of this portrait. In subsequent months, Marin and Georgia O'Keeffe worked to keep open Stieglitz's gallery, An American Place; however, this effort was ultimately aborted.

Collier & McCann (active 1946)
Gelatin silver print, 1946
Published January 1947
ARTnews Collection, New York City