Philadelphia Museum of Art
March 1–May 14, 2017
Americans learned to love watercolor in the years between 1860 and 1925. The work of the two most influential American watercolorists, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent, is centerstage in the remarkable transformation of the reputation and practice of the medium in the United States.
American Watercolor in the Age of Homer and Sargent examines how watercolor became a powerful and versatile “American” medium.
The exhibition begins with the creation of the American Watercolor Society, founded in 1866 to promote the medium and unite artists of all ages, styles, and backgrounds. Their movement created stars—Homer, William T. Richards, Thomas Moran, John La Farge, Edwin Austin Abbey—who would remain dedicated to watercolor for decades. Other artists, such as Thomas Eakins and George Inness, rode the wave through its peak in the 1880s, until a new generation, including Childe Hassam and Maurice Prendergast, rose in the 1890s.
Together, their work produced a taste for watercolor among younger artists and eager collectors that would endure into the twentieth century. The legacies of Homer, Sargent, and their contemporaries would influence the next generation—artists such as Charles Demuth, John Marin, Charles Burchfield, and Edward Hopper—who made watercolor a national idiom.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue produced by the Museum and distributed by Yale University Press.
A Tent in the Rockies, 1916, by John Singer Sargent (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, P3w17)
Diamond Shoal, 1905, by Winslow Homer (Private Collection)
Guide Carrying a Deer, 1891, by Winslow Homer (Portland Museum of Art)
Additional works in the exhibition:
William M. Hart
First Snow, Grafton, Maine
1867
14 × 16 15/16 inches (35.6 × 43 cm)
Mat (in original mat): 14 × 17 inches (35.6 × 43.2 cm) Framed (estimated): 23 1/2 × 32 1/4 inches (59.7 × 81.9 cm) Watercolor on paper
Albany Institute of History and Art, New York
James David Smillie
On the Ausable
1869
9 1/2 × 12 7/8 inches (24.1 × 32.7 cm)
Framed (estimated): 18 × 21 inches (45.7 × 53.3 cm) Watercolor and gouache on green-gray wove paper Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Samuel Colman
The Harbor of Seville
1867
12 3/8 × 27 9/16 inches (31.5 × 70 cm)
Framed (estimated): 21 × 36 inches (53.3 × 91.4 cm) Watercolor and gouache on paper
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The American Pre-Raphaelites
Ellen Robbins
Autumn Leaves
c. 1865-1870
Sheet: 21 7/16 × 29 9/16 inches (54.5 × 75.1 cm)
Framed: 29 1/2 × 37 3/8 × 3/4 inches (74.9 × 94.9 × 1.9 cm) Watercolor on paper
Philadelphia Museum of Art
William Trost Richards
Red Clover with Butter-and-Eggs and Ground Ivy
1860
6 3/4 × 5 5/16 inches (17.2 × 13.5 cm)
Framed: 21 1/4 × 16 1/4 inches (54 × 41.3 cm)
Watercolors with selectively applied glaze over graphite on paper Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Thomas Charles Farrer
Three Eggs
c. 1865
5 × 10 inches (12.7 × 25.4 cm)
Framed: 10 1/2 × 15 1/2 inches (26.7 × 39.4 cm) Watercolor on paper
Private Lender
Henry Roderick Newman
Anemones
1876
18 × 11 3/4 inches (45.7 × 29.8 cm)
Framed (estimated): 26 × 20 inches (66 × 50.8 cm) Watercolor heightened with gum glaze over graphite on paper Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Henry Roderick Newman
Grapes and Olives
1878
26 × 18 13/16 inches (66 × 47.8 cm)
Mat: 34 × 26 inches (86.4 × 66 cm)
Framed (estimated, per Brooklyn info): 29 × 37 inches (73.7 × 94 cm) Watercolor with touches of watercolor varnish and graphite pencil underdrawing on paper
Brooklyn Museum, New York
John William Hill
West Nyack, New York
1868
12 × 16 3/8 inches (30.5 × 41.6 cm)
Framed: 20 1/4 × 24 5/16 inches (51.4 × 61.8 cm)
Transparent watercolor with small applications of opaque watercolor over graphite on cream, medium weight, wove paper with J. Whatman watermark lined to secondary paper
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Robert Pattison
Mountain View
1862
Sheet: 20 13/16 × 29 13/16 inches (52.8 × 75.8 cm)
Framed (estimated): 29 × 38 inches (73.7 × 96.5 cm)
Watercolor with graphite and touches of gouache and scraping on paper Cleveland Museum of Art
John William Hill
Fawn's Leap, Catskill Mountains
1867
13 13/16 × 17 15/16 inches (35.1 × 45.6 cm) Framed (estimated): 22 × 26 inches (55.9 × 66 cm) Watercolor on paper
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Henry Farrer
Winter Scene in Moonlight
1869
11 7/8 × 15 3/16 inches (30.2 × 38.6 cm)
Framed (estimated): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 61 cm) Watercolor and gouache on white wove paper Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Charles Herbert Moore
Mount Washington
1872
6 5/16 × 9 1/16 inches (16 × 23 cm)
Framed (estimated): 15 × 18 inches (38.1 × 45.7 cm) Watercolor and touches of graphite on cream wove paper Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey
John Henry Hill
Natural Bridge, Virginia
1876
21 1/4 × 14 1/8 inches (54 × 35.9 cm)
Mat: 28 × 22 inches (71.1 × 55.9 cm)
Framed (estimated, per Brooklyn info): 31 × 25 inches (78.7 × 63.5 cm) Watercolor over graphite on cream, very thick, slightly textured wove paper mounted to a secondary paper
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Landscape in the 1870s
William Trost Richards
A High Tide at Atlantic City
1873
8 7/16 × 13 15/16 inches (21.4 × 35.4 cm)
Framed: 16 3/8 × 21 1/4 inches (41.6 × 54 cm)
Opaque watercolor on cream, moderately thick, moderately textured wove paper
Brooklyn Museum, New York
William Trost Richards
Lake Squam from Red Hill
1874
8 7/8 × 13 9/16 inches (22.5 × 34.4 cm)
Framed (estimated): 17 × 22 inches (43.2 × 55.9 cm) Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on light gray-green wove paper Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
William Trost Richards
A Rocky Coast
1877
28 1/8 × 36 1/4 inches (71.4 × 92.1 cm)
Framed (estimated): 37 × 35 inches (94 × 88.9 cm) Watercolor and gouache on fibrous brown wove paper Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Thomas Moran
Big Springs in Yellowstone
1872
9 1/4 × 19 1/4 inches (23.5 × 48.9 cm)
Framed (estimated): 18 × 28 inches (45.7 × 71.1 cm) Watercolor and Chinese white on paper
Private Lender
Thomas Moran
The Upper End of Little Cottonwood Canyon, Wasatch Range, near Ogden, Utah, August 13, 1879
1879
10 3/16 × 14 5/8 inches (25.9 × 37.1 cm)
Framed (estimated): 19 × 23 inches (48.3 × 58.4 cm)
Brush and watercolor, white gouache, graphite on gray laid paper Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York
George Inness
The Dolomites
c. 1873
9 1/16 × 11 3/4 inches (23 × 29.8 cm)
Framed (estimated): 18 × 20 inches (45.7 × 50.8 cm) Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut AWC-109
Henry Farrer
Sunset, New York Bay
1875
12 × 18 1/2 inches (30.5 × 47 cm)
Framed (estimated): 20 × 27 inches (50.8 × 68.6 cm) Watercolor on paper
Private Lender
Albert Fitch Bellows
Coaching in New England
c. 1876
24 7/8 × 35 7/8 inches (63.2 × 91.1 cm)
Mat: 30 × 40 inches (76.2 × 101.6 cm)
Framed: 29 5/8 × 40 1/2 inches (75.2 × 102.9 cm)
Transparent and opaque watercolor with touches of gum varnish over black chalk on cream, moderately thick, rough-textured wove paper
Brooklyn Museum, New York
llustrators and Figure PaintersAlfred Thompson Bricher
Dory on Dana's Beach, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts
1879
Sheet: 14 1/2 × 20 1/2 inches (36.8 × 52.1 cm) Watercolor and gouache on paper
Private Lender
John La Farge
Trionfo d'Amore
c. 1866-1879
5 7/8 × 3 5/8 inches (15 × 9.2 cm)
Framed (estimated, from Princeton image): 11 × 9 inches (27.9 × 22.9 cm) Graphite and gray, white, brown, and ivory wash, on a prepared uncut woodblock
Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey
Winslow Homer
Boys in a Dory
1873
9 3/4 × 13 7/8 inches (24.8 × 35.2 cm)
Framed (estimated): 18 × 22 inches (45.7 × 55.9 cm) Watercolor washes and gouache over graphite underdrawing on medium-rough textured white wove paper
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Winslow Homer
Gloucester Harbor
1873
Image: 9 1/4 x 14 inches (23.5 x 35.6 cm) Wood engraving
Philadelphia Museum of Art
1941-53-105
Thomas Eakins
John Biglin in a Single Scull
1873
Image and sheet: 16 7/8 × 23 15/16 inches (42.9 × 60.8 cm) Framed: 24 1/2 × 31 1/2 × 1 1/8 inches (62.2 × 80 × 2.9 cm) Watercolor on paper
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Winslow Homer
A Flower for the Teacher
1875
Sheet: 7 5/8 × 6 3/16 inches (19.4 × 15.7 cm)
Framed: 19 1/4 × 17 1/2 × 2 inches (48.9 × 44.5 × 5.1 cm)
Watercolor with gouache over graphite on off-white wove paper mounted on hardboard
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens
Winslow Homer
The Trysting Place
1875
12 × 8 1/16 inches (30.5 × 20.5 cm)
Framed (estimated): 20 × 17 inches (50.8 × 43.2 cm)
Watercolor and gouache over traces of pastel and graphite on cream wove paper
Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey
Winslow Homer
Young Woman Sewing
1876
Sheet: 9 3/4 × 7 7/8 inches (24.8 × 20 cm)
Framed (estimated): 18 × 16 inches (45.7 × 40.6 cm) Watercolor over graphite on wove paper
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Enoch Wood Perry
A Month’s Darning
1876
20 × 15 3/4 inches (50.8 × 40 cm)
Framed (estimated): 28 × 24 inches (71.1 × 61 cm) Watercolor, gouache, and gum arabic on off-white wove paper Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Thomas Eakins
Seventy Years Ago
1877
15 11/16 × 10 13/16 inches (39.8 × 27.5 cm)
Framed (estimated): 24 × 19 inches (61 × 48.3 cm)
Watercolor and gouache on cream wove paper with graphite border Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey
Impressionism
Winslow HomerGloucester Harbor1873
Image: 9 1/2 × 13 1/2 inches (24.1 × 34.3 cm) Framed (estimated): 18 × 22 inches (45.7 × 55.9 cm) Watercolor and gouache on paper
Private Lender
