Florida International University FIU Digital Commons Frost Art Museum Catalogs Frost Art Museum 1-21-1983 Realist Watercolors The iV sual Arts Gallery at Florida International University Frost Art Museum The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/frostcatalogs Recommended Citation Frost Art Museum, The iV sual Arts Gallery at Florida International University, "Realist Watercolors" (1983). Frost Art Museum Catalogs. 54. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/frostcatalogs/54 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Frost Art Museum at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Frost Art Museum Catalogs by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 338� REALIST WATERCOLORS Fairfield Porter "Rocks and Shore Growth 1975, 22 X 29" Elizabeth Osborne Autumn Still Life, 1981 Real ist Watercolors A national exhibition organized and with an introduction by: Dahlia Morgan and an essay by Gerrit Henry Jan. 21 - Feb. 25, 1983 The Visual Arts Gallery Florida International University - Tamiami Campus Artists in the Exhibition Leigh Behnke Nell Blaine Carolyn Brady Sondra Freckelton Richard Haas George Harkins John Stuart Ingle John Moore Malcolm Morley Don Nice EI izabeth Osborne Philip Pearlstein Fairfield Porter Joseph Raffael Susan Shatter Neil Welliver Acknowledgements: "Realist Watercolors" was organized for the Visual Arts Gallery at Florida International University, Miami, Florida.1t was conceived in response to the resurgence of interest in realism generally and the particular emergence of watercolor as a primary mode of that expression. My sincere gratitude goes to all the lenders who generously parted with thei r watercolors for this exhibition: Mrs. Susanna Borghese, Mr. Charles Marx Sr., Mr. Wilson Nolen, Dr. and Mrs. Robert E. Carroll, The Reader's Digest Magazine, Amarada-Hess Corporation, Brooke Alexander Gallery, Fischbach Gallery, Allan Frumkin Gallery, Hirschi and Adler Gallery, Nancy Hoffman Gallery, Tatistcheff, Inc., and the Xavier Fourcade Gallery. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to organize this' exhibition. My interest in water­ colors was stimulated by my husband, Andrew Morgan, whose continued patience and help was invaluable. The task would not have been possible without the support of the students and staff of the gallery, especially Mr. William Humphreys for his continuing interest and care in all aspects of the organization, and Mrs. Wynne Leavitt who pursued her registrarial tasks with effi­ ciency and constant good humor. This exhibition forms part of the Second Decade celebration at Florida International I am to Presi­ University .. particularly grateful dent Gregory Wolfe and the Administration for thei r efforts in maki ng Florida I nterna­ tional University a major center for the arts in the Southeast. Funding assistance from the Student Govern­ ment Association helped make this exhibi­ tion a reality, and finally a special thanks to Secretary of State George Firestone, the Department of State, the Division of Cultural Affairs, the Fine Arts Council and the Legislature for their continued confidence in our exhibition choices and their funding commitment. Dahlia Morgan Di rector of Galleries Neil Welliver Deer, 1979 Introduction were late rem­ The history of painting in the 19th Century is to where it might almost have been con­ and decorative formulas that particularly illuminating because of the ex­ sidered subversive. During the 60's, the nants of abstract painting. This new figura­ tensive employment of transparent water­ device of watercolor disappeared from art tion was not a revival of nineteenth century of color by major figures, from J.M.W. Turner at school curricula, from Art News, from form and content. It came directly out the the beginning of the century, to Winslow museum exhibitions and book production. late stages of modernism, particularly Homer at its conclusion. At the turn of the One had to turn to The American Artist, a Abstract Expressionism, and is clearly seen in Area century the recognized father of modern magazine largely patronized by commercial in its earliest stages the Bay paint­ was one of the most painting, Paul Cezanne, was a master of this illustrators with its endless sand dune/art fair ings. Fairfield Porter medium. In fact his experience with water­ art, to find any examples of the existence of poignant and transitional figures. He was a and color transformed both the appl ication and watercolor. Neo-Dada, with it's art-life major influence on this return to nature of conception of oil painting. Tone grounds merger, introduced three dimensional chunks an important catalyst in the revival disappeared and the structure of the painting of reality with which watercolor could hardly watercolor. became more visible. I would venture to say co-exist. A spectrum of new movements, I believe it is important to recognize another that Cezanne's with watercolor, including Photo-realism, Environmental Art, experience factor: Feminism and Feminist Art Art of it emerged more than any other visual fact, anticipated I nstallations and Decorative (much in the 70's, it is not coincidental that many the development of Cubism. three dimensional in character), drew more of the finest painters in America today are on literal and multi-impact phenomena which After With the of the Bauhaus women. A surprisingly large number work in 1920, input left no call for the lyrical "suspension of watercolor. like Susan Shatter, work and the development of late modern painting, disbelief" that characterizes watercolor. In­ Some, watercolor became more and less almost in that medium. It may be sporadic deed it was an approach that was too subtle, exclusively issues of the that women, traditionally excluded from the central to the painting. Perhaps even too modest, to compete with perhaps with the elements of more than "art world", were actively engaged automatism, anything the super hype movements following the use and real world: flowers, food, domestic interiors else, led to the increasing of layers decline of Abstract Expressionism. Needless altered surfaces. The surfaces and children became important subject mat­ transparent to say, acrylic, the miracle medium of color were less ter that called for immediacy. The reactiva­ and paper ground of watercolor field painting, left watercolor with a label this in tion of the conscious eye in contact with suitable. Nevertheless, during period that suggested a kind of academic obsoles­ United between 1920 and nature all of these artists a new sense the States, 1940, cence. Paper was hardly a suitable support gave were of about man's relationship to his some of our finest watercolorists for the heroic sized canvases of Pollock or urgency and environment. Contemporary realism required thriving--Marin, Demuth, Hopper the flat-bed mountings of Rauschenberg. and climactic a new engagement with the physical world. Burchfield. As the late stages Alas, watercolor painting was regarded as and The art of spontaneous sketching naturally of modernism developed between 1930 distasteful, dreadful and dead. of 1950, watercolor was distinctly on the followed this rebirth representational pain­ decline, Even the American social realists A revival of watercolor in the late seventies ting and with that, the rediscovery of found it too ephemeral and subtle. Certainly seemed even less likely than the re­ watercolor. Dahlia that was the case with the Mexican emergence of figurative painting. But another Morgan muralists. Abstract painting with its layered cycle of aesthetic taste had run its course. Dahlia Morgan is an She opacity and cutting, scraping and pouring Pluralism spawned doubt and that doubt Art Historian. teaches Modern and had little or no use for transparent water­ helped revive perception. Rebels and cast Art at color. By definition, transparent watercolor ofts, largely second generation Abstract Contemporary Florida International is a staining process that quick dries and Expressionists such as Neil Welliver, Philip reveals the underlying bones of the drawing. Pearlstein, Alex Katz, Jane Freilicher (to University. What was an ideal sketching material for the name just a few) from the East, and Parks representational painter offered little to the and Diebenkorn from the San Francisco Bay Jungian expressionist who was dredging up Area, revived the tradition of painterly automatic marks and planes from his realism. As early as the late 60's Mercedes subconcious. Matter, whose father was the founder of the Association of Abstract Artists, founded the The era of Post-modern Art beginning in the New York Studio School as a haven for art of watercolor late 50's reduced the presence students who were fed-up with the vacuity Malcolm Morley Nuns in Battery Park, 1980 Essay nst Reality--or at least our perception of it in art-­ all--in this half of the century, anyway--was canyons and mou ntai ns or the sea agai for his rocks. Harkins' have the feel of has changed drastically over the past 2,000 Fairfield Porter. Although best known paintings of children's book years. No longer do we build heaven-tending large oils of Southampton and environs, highly sophisticated almost to see the cathedrals whose towers pierce the sky; no family and friends, Porter brought his lyrical, illustrations--you expect on more little in his rocks and moss longer do angels hover over landscapes, nor acutely painterly style to watercolor people among the and water in the dark of color is Venus to be seen rising from the sea. than one occasion, with results like grasses, tangle Shatter's work is more Shepherds and Shepherdesses do not, in magnificent Sun and Sea, in which a cloudy and light. strongly Abstract in its today's art, cavort in Arcadian pastures; we white sun glowers over rows of yellow influenced by Expressionism Porter's is a land­ all-over effects and of stroke. Both have no David to heroicize history, no clouds and purple dunes.