Mountain with Red House

This mountain landscape with two small houses was painted while Demuth was in Europe from December 1912 to spring 1914. In the summer of 1913, he visited the French coastal village of Etretat, which is probably the subject of this picture. The wateriness of Demuth's pigment and his use of watercolor outlines, rather than pencil ones, may be influenced by the watercolors of John Marin, which he greatly admired and could have seen in Paris and New York exhibitions. In 1931, Demuth gave this picture to his good friend Georgia O'Keeffe, who subsequently included it in the group of works she selected for The Met as part of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection.

On the reverse side of the mountain scene is an earlier and even more ethereal watercolor. It depicts a bridge over the Seine in Paris, with the dome of Notre Dame Cathedral on the left. It's heavily blotted surface and feathery brushstrokes, lack of outlines, and pale pastel colors, also emulates the style and subject matter of Marin's very early European works of 1907–9. The fact that this composition was hidden on the back of another watercolor, may have saved it from being destroyed by the artist, who often threw out early works that did not meet his later standards.