1910

Chartres Cathedral

American, 1870 - 1953

The Museum owns the master set of Marin's etchings, as well as seventy-one of his plates. Only rare and highly desirable additions are made to such a complete collection, as in the instance of Chartres Cathedral, a proof in which the artist daubed areas of the plate with his inky fingertips, introducing an effect of animated abstraction to an otherwise conventional composition. Marin's use of this novel approach to printing in 1910 forecasts the freewheeling method of inking he later adopted in his series of abstract etchings of grain elevators and skyscrapers in 1916-17.