Watercolors Resurface at Fogg

A watercolor set costs $20, will fit in your pocket, and can be used by a child. A set of oil paints is hard to transport and master, and could easily set you back hundreds of dollars. No wonder watercolor is often seen as the province of amateurs.

All stereotypes aside, an upcoming show at the Fogg Museum will feature the stunning results the fluid medium can generate.

This spring, the Fogg will introduce “American Watercolors and Pastels, 1875-1950,”a rare opportunity to view the museum’s revered but well-protected collection. The exhibit runs from April 8 to June 25 and is curated by Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. and Virginia M. Anderson ’93. 

Many of the pieces have not been shown since 1936, when the Fogg last showcased its watercolor and pastel archives. “This is a very rare opportunity to see some of the highlights of our collection,” said Stebbins. 

“Works on paper are extremely fragile…these are very delicate,” said Stebbins. “They can’t be shown very often.” Accordingly, the show will be conducted under very controlled conditions; special lighting is designed to keep the artworks from fading. 

But watercolors weren’t always so carefully preserved. Until the late-nineteenth century, watercolor was considered an inferior medium, suitable only for preparatory sketches and amateur entertainment.  

Winslow Homer was one of the first artists to combat these misconceptions. He was also one of the first—and finest—artists to use watercolor as an independent medium. He is now renowned for his work with the form.

Homer’s masterpiece, “Mink Pond,” will be featured in the upcoming show. “This is Homer at his best,” said co-curator Anderson. “The level of detail is so crisp, but it is also expressive, personal, and charming.”

Seven other rare Homers will also be shown. 

The degree of skill required for such painting contradicts the classification of watercolor as a low-commitment medium. “Extraordinary skill is required of the artist. It is a very difficult medium to work with, very demanding,” said Stebbins.

Unlike oil, where a mistake can be rectified with more paint, it is nearly impossible to hide a slip of the brush when working with translucent watercolor; consequently the artist’s hand is very evident in the work.  “I love the fluency and immediacy,” Stebbins noted. 

The exhibit also includes watercolors composed by other early masters of the medium: John Singer Sargent and John La Farge.  Freshmen will recognize the bold colors and strong forms in La Farge’s “Chinese Pi-tong” (1879) as they are also apparent in his stained glass “Battle Window” which can be found in Annenberg.

The next generation of watercolorists further redefined the bounds of the sub-genre.  As Europeans like Kandinsky, Miró, and Klee experimented with abstract watercolor composition, American artists were “rediscovering and searching for their roots in the early watercolorists,” said Stebbins. Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Demuth and John Marin—all early experimenters with realism, abstraction and modernism—took on the yoke previously worn by Sargent and Homer. 

Hopper, who is the subject of an upcoming show at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, abandoned the familiar natural beauty of Adirondack ponds and the glory of Venice but pursued the realist tradition with stark but tender scenes inspired by daily life. Demuth—with his trademark sparse but concentrated application of color—turned to a cubist-influenced realism, as is evident in his entrancing “Fruit and Sunflowers” (c. 1924-25). 

The show also includes a small collection of pastel works, most notably several important pieces by James Whistler. 

Homer’s liberation of watercolor from societal constraints triggered an explosion in the use of the medium, one that allowed for “a vast range of expression of artists working with this medium,” said Anderson. “[The Fogg’s] exhibition will explore a little known strength of Harvard’s art museum collection,” said Stebbins.

As we now know, watercolors certainly aren’t just for kids; this show promises to be an extraordinary celebration of the medium’s golden age.