Alfred Stieglitz was constantly at the forefront of artistic trends and used his influence to encourage and support emerging artists and their creative innovations. This portrait of John Marin, a leading figure of American modernism who worked primarily in watercolor, reveals the close friendship of the two artists. The soft focus enhances the intimacy of the portrait and is in many ways a return to Stieglitz’s pictorialist or painterly roots while maintaining the purist photography doctrine he later acquired. Stieglitz and his wife Georgia O’Keeffe were some of Marin’s closet artistic allies and they amassed a large number of his works in their personal collection.