In the summer of 1910, Marin spent six weeks in the Austrian Alps. The subject of his second solo exhibition at 291 in February 1911, his fluid and vividly colored Tyrolean watercolors mark a breakthrough in his artistic practice. For the first time, the artist worked with little or no graphite underdrawing, painting his most freely worked watercolors to date and communicating his feeling of energy and joy in the environment. Here Marin applied bright, transparent washes with rapid gestures and plenty of water, emphasizing the contour of a hill with an outline of bright yellow pigment that would become one of his trademarks. He improvised with subtraction as well, removing pigment from the center of the composition and allowing pale mists of color to obscure the mountains.

— Exhibition label, John Marin's Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism, January 19-April 17, 2011, Galleries 124-127.