CHICAGO, IL.- In 1948, a nationwide survey pronounced John Marin (1870–1953) “America’s Number 1 artist.” Marin’s exuberant and improvisational paintings are recognized today as critical to the evolution of American modernism. Less well known, though, is the extent to which Marin pushed the limits of the watercolor medium, establishing for a new generation of artists its inherent suitability to avant-garde expression. The Art Institute of Chicago has organized a major exhibition that is the first to explore this idea through close technical analysis of the artist’s watercolor practice: John Marin’s Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism, which is on view in the museum’s Jean and Steven Goldman Prints and Drawings Galleries in the Richard and Mary