Painted just a year before his death, "Tunk Mountains, Maine" confirms John Marin’s life-long commitment to the intimate scale of watercolor. Viewed from a promontory he returned to many times after establishing a summer home in Cape Split, in 1933, this vista was among Marin’s favorites, with its paired profiles of the two mountains and glimpse of a lake folded into the valley on the left.

Most likely working on site, Marin quickly sketched the contours of the surrounding area in black crayon, then used staccato strokes to lay down pure blocks of red, blue, green, and black. Marin also painted a variation of this vista in oils that year as well. Now in the collection of the Wichita Art Museum, the oil painting is dominated by rose colors, grays, and brown, with dramatic incidents of impasto. Comparing these two versions of "Tunk Mountains," it is clear that Marin was not using watercolor as a preliminary process for the more finished oil. Rather, the two compositions attest to Marin’s fascination with landscape as an ever-changing panorama.