Born in Rutherford, New Jersey, John Marin was a painter and printmaker best known for his Maine seascapes and views of New York City. Marin started out as an architectural draftsman but soon switched to fine art, studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Art Students League in New York. He traveled to Europe in 1905 where he was influenced by the watercolors and etchings of James McNeill Whistler. Back in New York, Marin began developing his signature, expressionist style that had aspects of cubism, modernism and abstraction.