Untitled [New York City] [verso] 

Curator: Here we have "Untitled [New York City] [verso]" by John Marin. It’s difficult to assign it a specific date, but it certainly captures the bustling spirit of early 20th-century urban life, using ink in a rather energetic way. What's your first take? Editor: My gut reaction? A jazz solo transcribed in lines. Chaotic, maybe, but full of energy—like the city itself is bursting right off the page. I feel almost seasick trying to focus on one point. Curator: Indeed! Marin, heavily influenced by his contact with Stieglitz and the 291 Gallery, translated avant-garde ideas into uniquely American idioms, especially in his urban scenes. Note the dynamism of the ink work; he almost attacks the paper! Editor: Absolutely, and there’s a delightful sense of immediacy, isn't there? This feels more like a captured moment than a carefully constructed composition. It's not pristine. It's messy, real. Curator: Precisely. The sketch highlights the sheer verticality of Manhattan—the imposing architecture juxtaposed with the street-level activity creates an urban theater, doesn’t it? One influenced by social realism. Editor: Right, you can almost hear the clamor of construction and commerce. Look at the little figures sketched at the bottom, bustling, hurried. But there's something playful about it all. Curator: It speaks to Marin's ambition to visualize New York's chaotic vitality but it's never detached. He was deeply involved with how this modernity impacts individual psychology, portraying an almost anxious optimism. Editor: I like that—"anxious optimism". It really does capture that push and pull. There's that skyscraper, rendered with a few frantic strokes, somehow conveys both ambition and looming anxiety. It is the future coming towards us. Curator: His series portraying the Woolworth Building specifically captured this sense of anxiety surrounding rapid change and wealth. But in his method itself we witness an excitement toward image-making which allowed a radical formal experimentation in American art. Editor: For sure. I come back to that sense of capturing movement. Marin’s lines make us *feel* the city's pulse, and the raw texture of the ink helps to give it all a slightly unstable feeling which fits the time very well. I love it! Curator: His drawings challenge established notions of artistic finish and, in turn, invite viewers to actively engage with and interpret the scene rather than passively consume it. Editor: Right, like a good poem, it’s less about providing answers and more about sparking something inside of you, making you complicit in creating the scene. I suppose the city continues to demand it even today. Curator: And that, perhaps, is where its lasting power resides. Editor: I agree, what else is art for!