The man who has shaped American watercolor for more than 60 years identifies the historic painters who have made the most of the medium.

by M. Stephen Doherty

1. Milton Avery (1893–1965)

Tall Tree by Milton Avery, 1943, watercolor, 22 x 30. Private collection.

When I first proposed to Andrew Wyeth that he compose a list of 20 artists he considered to be among the greatest watercolorists, he considered both contemporary and historic practitioners. “He’s concerned that limiting the list to historic figures would make it too short; and that adding contemporary painters would make it too long,” said his curator, Mary Landa. “He also worries about offending some good watercolorists he might not think about.” I suggested he focus on historic painters and consider a long list I put together. By the time I visited Wyeth’s home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, in early March, he was feeling more confident about finalizing a list that would suggest to Watercolor readers what he felt was the hallmark of a great watercolor.

The final list of 20 great painters includes those who elevated the importance of watercolor and helped define a distinctly American attitude toward the medium, as well as artists who are less well known yet offer a uniquely expressive approach to working with combinations of water-soluble paints. The selection includes some obvious choices that would be on almost anyone’s roster—such as Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent—as well as artists such as William Thon, Hardy Gramatky, and Morris Graves, who reflect Wyeth’s age, experience, and attitude. For example, he knew and admired several of the artists who shared his interest in expressive representation; and, in contrast, he felt no particular affinity with the Abstract Expressionists or the Photo Realists who painted in watercolor at roughly the same time he was working with the medium.

2. Charles Burchfield (1893–1967)

Ravine in Summer Rain by Charles Burchfield, 1917, watercolor, 22 x 171/2. Collection Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur F. Magill.

The point in formulating this list is to offer a broader view of watercolor than many people would associate with Wyeth. People often form the mistaken opinion that he gravitates toward the sentimental, pastoral, or nostalgic; but a review of the vast number of watercolors he has created since the late 1930s reveals that he is often captivated by the power of nature, the transience of life, the juxtaposition of animate and inanimate forms, and the ability of watercolor to represent the soul of the artist. Those are often the qualities he admires in other artists’ paintings.

It is clear that no other contemporary artist has influenced the ways painters use watercolor as much as Wyeth. His paintings have been so widely exhibited and reproduced over the past 60 years that almost every watercolorist has been influenced by him, either directly or indirectly. That influence may come from direct experience, through teachers or fellow artists, or through collectors who measure every watercolorist against Wyeth. Many artists have emulated the subject matter of his paintings, his palette of colors, his penchant for detail, his orientation toward personal themes, or his willingness to express individual perceptions.

Anyone who has enjoyed such unprecedented success and had such a pervasive influence on generations of artists might be excused if he were arrogant, aloof, or remote. After all, celebrities in other fields are notoriously demanding. But despite his fame, wealth, and influence Wyeth is much the same person he was when he mounted his first exhibition of watercolors in 1938 at the age of 20. He remains a personable, caring, and appreciative man who is just as excited about the freedom afforded by watercolor as he was when his father first encouraged him to use the paints. Even with a major retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (“Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic,” March 29 through July 16, 2006), an exhibition of his drawings at the Brandywine River Museum, in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania (“Andrew Wyeth: Master Drawings From the Artist’s Collection,” March 11 through July 16, 2006), Wyeth is still most excited when sitting on the ground with a stack of watercolor paper in his lap, brushes and paints laid out by his side, and a tree or a figure posing in front of him.

3. Charles Demuth (1883–1935)

Fruit and Sun Flowers by Charles Demuth, 1924–1925, watercolor over graphite on white wove paper, 18 x 113/4. Collection Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Louise E. Bettens Fund. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Wyeth made similar comments about watercolor when writing about the paintings reproduced in a book titled Andrew Wyeth Autobiography (Bulfinch Press, New York, New York). “The only virtue to it is to put down an idea quickly without thought about what you feel at the moment. It’s one’s free side. Watercolor shouldn’t behave,” he commented in reference to Half Bushel, a painting of a basket lying under an apple tree, created in 1959. “You’re in the lap of the gods—almost like painting with your eyes half-closed.” “Sometimes I don’t want to see too clearly,” he wrote in reference to another watercolor. “You build up a kind of color that is purely an interpretation of the truth. Anything to get away from the predictable. This applies to the design of a picture too. Painting is all about breaking the rules. Art is chance.”

Wyeth was introduced to watercolor by his father, the famous illustrator N.C. Wyeth, and by one of his father’s friends, Sid Chase. He immediately began looking at the work of great watercolorists from the past, especially American artists who “lifted watercolor from the academic approach of the British and made it something freer,” he explained to me. Among the first historic artists to inform and influence young Wyeth was Winslow Homer (1836–1910), whose work he first saw when visiting Homer’s studio in Prouts Neck, Maine. “I never wanted to copy the work of other people, but I wanted to find the truth in nature that they were expressing—and then find my own truth,” he is says in the book Andrew Wyeth: Early Watercolors, by Susan Strickler (Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire). “So Homer led me on to something else. I got a direction that was authentic to me and to what I felt.”

As his interest in watercolor expanded, so did Wyeth’s awareness of other great artists who used the medium, particularly those who used it as freely and expressively as he did. He was especially interested in those who had developed a personal style and expanded their range of possibilities. He met many of those artists, such as Edward Hopper, during trips to New York or summer excursions to Maine; and a number of others called on him in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

The enthusiasm that Andrew and Betsy Wyeth have for American painting is demonstrated through their foundation, The Wyeth Foundation for American Art. The foundation provides substantial support for exhibitions, catalogues, research, and acquisitions of American art. The Wyeths have also donated works from their personal collection to museums, and they have made plans to leave their home and property to the Brandywine River Museum.    

4. Arthur Dove (1880–1946)	5. Thomas Eakins (1844–1916)	6. Hardy Gramatky (1907–1979)
Study for Clam Shell by Arthur Dove, 1938, watercolor and ink on paper, 5 x 7. Private collection. Photo courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York, New York.	Seventy Years Ago by Thomas Eakins, 1877, watercolor and gouache on cream wove paper with graphite border, 155/8 x 103/4. Collection Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey.	Holiday by Hardy Gramatky, 1976, watercolor, 19 x 271/4. Collection the estate of Hardy Gramatky.
7. Morris Graves (1910–2001)	8. Childe Hassam (1859–1935)	9. Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Summer Bouquet (Pompom Poppy, Clematis, and Strawberry Flower) by Morris Graves, 1977, watercolor and tempera on paper, 12 x 11. Collection Esther and Charles Campbell.	General Lee House, Richmond by Childe Hassam, 1925, watercolor, 8 x 105/8. Collection Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina. Arthur and Holly McGill Fund.	Mink Pond by Winslow Homer, 1891, watercolor over graphite on heavy white wove paper, 137/8 x 20. Collection Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.
10. Edward Hopper (1882–1967)	11. Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986)	12. John Marin (1870–1953)
Highland Light by Edward Hopper, 1930, watercolor, 163/4 x 253/4. Collection Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Musuems, Cambridge, Massachusetts. William M. Prichard Memorial Fund. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.	Abstraction by Georgia O’Keeffe, 1916, charcoal and wash, 187/8 x 241/4. Collection Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina. Museum purchase with funds from The Museum Association, Inc.; Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Howard Suitt Jr.; Rich’s; and Mr. and Mrs. C.H. Abbe (by exchange).	Mt. Chocorua No. 1 by John Marin, 1926, watercolor and charcoal on heavy white wove paper, 17 x 22. Collection Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. William M. Prichard Memorial Fund. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.
13. Reginald Marsh (1898–1954)	14. Thomas Moran (1837–1926)	15. John Pike (1911–1979)
Merry-Go-Round by Reginald Marsh, watercolor and black crayon on wove paper, 267/8 x 401/4. Collection National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Gift of the Honorable William Benton. © 2006.	The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone by Thomas Moran, 1872, watercolor. Collection Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.	Overlook Mountain by John Pike, 1970, watercolor, 20 x 24. Courtesy John Pike Art Products.
16. Ogden Pleissner (1905–1983)	17. Maurice B. Prendergast (1859–1924)	18. John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)
Old Mill, Winchendon, Massachusetts by Ogden M. Pleissner, 1960, watercolor, 16 x 26. Courtesy Vose Galleries of Boston, Boston, Massachusetts.	The Mall, Central Park by Maurice Brazil Prendergast, 1900–1903, watercolor and graphite on wove paper, 22 x 20. Collection National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Collection Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the National Gallery of Art.	In a Medici Villa by John Singer Sargent, ca. 1907, watercolor, 213/16 x 143/8. Collection Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York.
19. Millard Sheets (1907–1989)	20. William Thon (1906–2000)
Boat Landing, Puerto Vallarta by Millard Owen Sheets, watercolor, 22 x 30. Courtesy California Watercolor (www.california watercolor.com).	Spruce Woods, Winter by William E. Thon, 1952, watercolor on paper, 21 x 29. Private collection.

Read more features like this from the fall 2006 20th anniversary issue of Watercolor magazine.

Tweet