Masters of Color and Light: Homer, Sargent, and the American Watercolor Movement

Washington, DC: The Brooklyn Museum of Art / Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. Hardcover. VG/VG. Hardcover book. Green cloth, blue & color illus. dust jacket, xiii, 223 pp. 47 bw, 150 color plates. Contents as follows: 1. "A Taste Awakened": The American Watercolor Movement in Brooklyn / Linda S. Ferber -- 2. The Exhibition Watercolor in America / Barbara Dayer Gallati -- 3. The Power of Patronage: William Trost Richards and the American Watercolor Movement / Linda S. Ferber -- 4. Watercolors by Winslow Homer at the Brooklyn Museum of art / Linda S. Ferber -- 5. Controlling the Medium: The Marketing of John Singer Sargent's Watercolors / Barbara Dayer Gallati -- 6. Language, Watercolor, and the American way / Barbara Dayer Gallati -- 7. The American Watercolor Canon for the Twentieth Century (Observations on a Work in Progress) / Barbara Dayer Gallati -- Chronology of the American Watercolor Movement / Thomas B. Parker -- Index of Artists in the Exhibition. In the 1870s and 1880s, artists' societies promoted watercolors as attractive, decorative, inexpensive alternatives to oils, successfully elevating them to the mainstream of American art. Based in New York City, this American watercolor movement paved the way for larger, more seriously received exhibition watercolors, and for a broad turn-of-the-century effort by public institutions - among them the Brooklyn Museum of Art - to acquire American works in the medium. Highlighting 150 paintings that span nearly two centuries, this richly illustrated volume documents the origin and development of one of the nation's finest collections by investigating for the first time aspects of American watercolor's patronage and critical reception. Less often displayed than oils because of their sensitivity to light, watercolors nevertheless have enjoyed a lively, complex history. Illuminating well-known works as well as many that have never before been reproduced, Masters of Color and Light showcases an array of paintings that range far beyond watercolor's early reputation as the "lighter and daintier" medium.