#American watercolorists

[kecobe]

View from a Window, Genoa John Singer Sargent (American; 1856–1925) Watercolor and oil over graphite ca. 1911 The British Museum, London. © The Trustees of the British Museum

[internationalemeteorologie]

Andrew Wyeth

Southern comfort. 1997

[thedepartmentofdiscoveries]

COMPARTMENT C, CAR 293 (1938) BY EDWARD HOPPER.

[didzblog]

Edward Hopper - Study for Nighthawks (1941-1942)

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper 1942

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper is an oil painting created in 1942, that portrays four people in a diner at night in New York. The overall tone of the painting is dark, other than the focal point: those in the diner.

No other artist managed to capture the solitude within the modern city like Edward Hopper. The ‘artist of empty spaces’ offers a remindful look at life of Americans during Great Depression. His suggestive imagery shares the mood of individual’s isolation with books of Tennessee Williams, Theodore Dreiser, Robert Frost, Jerome Salinger, as well as with canvasses of Giorgio De Chirico and Paul Delvaux. Hopper depicted the spirit of the time very subtly, showing it in the poses of characters, in the vast empty spaces around them, and also in his unique color palette.

[pagansphinx]

Samuel Joseph Brown (American, 1907-1994) • Smoking My Pipe • 1934 • Watercolor

Samuel Joseph Brown Jr. (1907–1994) was a watercolorist, printmaker, and educator. He was the first African American artist hired to produce work for the Public Works of Art Project, a precursor to the Work Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Brown often depicted the lives of African Americans in his paintings. He worked primarily in watercolor and oils, and he produced portraits, landscapes and prints. – Wikipedia

[focsle]

Since I've spent the entirety of my day with whaler Marshall Keith, here's what I've learned about him across records, newspapers, and his own diary. I like learning the backgrounds of the fellows whose journals I end up reading. - Marshall was a career whaleman from Mattapoisett Massachusetts. He first went to sea at the age of 15 on the whaleship Sun, 1853-55. He seemed to take to the work well, jumping rank to become an 18-year-old boatsteerer on the Afton 1856-59. 1859-62 he set sail again on the Ocean Rover, likely again as a boatsteerer. - In the last leg of its journey, the Ocean Rover was captured and burned by Confederate raider CSS Alabama. As a POW Marshall was paroled by the captain of the Alabama--meaning that he would be able to return home under the condition that takes an oath not to take up arms in the war. When the draft is instated for the American Civil War in the summer of 1863, as such, Marshall is exempted from it. - Over that summer he either makes the acquaintance of or deepens an existing relationship with a woman named Sarah Pope Taber, four years his junior. They spend 4 months in each other's company in Mattapoisett, and then by 1863-65 he's off again on the Brewster as 3rd mate. He seems to think of her often during the voyage however, documenting his dreams of which she is the object of many. They range from the erotic to the joyful to the anxious, often filled with concerns of some harm befalling her, her snubbing him at a social event ashore, or someone else marrying her or getting her pregnant. She's also the recipient of most of his letters. His writing is marked with the particular social self consciousness so many whalemen seemed to have, doubting his worthiness to her, but also carrying the hope that if they both survive the years of the voyage he'll return home to her. There's a curious relationship to gender that seems to be implied throughout his writing as well, as he refers to her in both his dreams and letters not only as Sarah but as James and Jimmy in equal measure. He expresses clear physical attraction to her as a woman, while also having dreams in which she cuts off all her hair and tries to hide it from him beneath a handkerchief, which he removes and remarks that he never saw her look so well. - Whatever anxiety he has about worthiness is for naught, because come 1866, Sarah marries him at the beginning of the year. By May, however, as a whaler does, he's gone to sea again, this time as first mate on the Cape Horn Pigeon, 66-69. While he's gone, Sarah gives birth to a daughter, Susy, in 1867. - Marshall returns home in May of 1869. Unfortunately he dies next May, 1870, of heart disease at the age of 32. In 1863, in one letter Marshall wrote to his 'angel mother' while he was sick with some ailment, he expressed great distress about dying at sea far from loved ones between the rotting decks of a ship where his body would be tossed into the ocean. He contrasted it with what he imagined Sarah's shore death would be, peaceful and surrounded by the affection of people who cared for her. I like to think that, while he died terribly young, he got a little bit of what he hoped for, being surrounded by family at home rather than saltwater and casks of oil and having a marked grave beneath the grass. - After his death Sarah and her daughter move in with Sarah's mother, and Sarah takes up work as a dressmaker. Sarah unfortunately also dies a mere 2 years later at age 30 of a bowel hemorrhage. Her daughter, then 5, is adopted by one of Sarah's sisters. I always like getting parts of the histories of these folks, as it helps build out the personal world of their diaries. Marshall was a bit of a watercolorist as well. Here are two paintings he made of his ship, in his journal.

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 12

1564 – Queen Elizabeth I reinstates the buggery law in England which makes sodomy illegal.

1706 – Pennsylvania eliminates the castration penalty from its sodomy law.

1751 – On this date the Baltic German writer of the Sturm und Drang movement Jakob Lenz was born (d.1792). Lenz is remembered as the most creative and original of Goethe's Strasbourg friends and, because of failures in his personal life, as a figure of pathos. The son of a Lutheran pastor who received a theological education at the University of Koenigsberg, Lenz was a religious thinker who saw himself as prophet as well as poet.

In 1771 in Strasbourg, he met the young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who at this time happened to be in Strasbourg, and whose acquaintance Lenz made, as well as that of Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling. Goethe now became Lenz's literary idol, and through him he made contact with Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Kaspar Lavater, with whom he corresponded.

In the following year, 1772, Lenz accompanied his literary masters to the garrisons of Landau, Fort Louis and Wissembourg. He also fell in love with Friederike Brion, once the beloved of Goethe, but his feelings were not reciprocated.

Recent scholarship has has revealed Lenz's relationship with Goethe. In books like Karl Hugo Pruys' "The Tiger's Tender Touch: The Erotic Life of Goethe" and Alice Kuzniar's "Outing Goethe and His Age" Lenz's full character and sexuality has been revived. Lenz was deeply in love with Goethe. Indeed he wrote countless love letters to the writer in which he professed his desire to be Goethe's wife.

Historians of Goethe have always been puzzled by an incident in Goethe's life. In April 1776 Lenz followed Goethe to the court of Weimar where he was at first amicably received. But in early December, on Goethe's instigation, he was expelled. The exact circumstances are not recorded; Goethe, who broke off all personal contact with him after this, refers only vaguely in his diary to "Lenz's idiocy" ("Lenzens Eseley"). Historians seem puzzled by this strange rejection of Lenz. A clearer reading of their relationship or Lenz's desires for Goethe make the situation a bit more clear. The rejection may have been a break in their relationship or a spurning of Lenz's attentions.

1856 – John Singer Sargent American portrait painter, born (d.1925) was the most successful portrait painter of his era, as well as a gifted landscape painter and watercolorist. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy to American parents. He studied in Italy and Germany, and then in Paris under Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran. Among the artists with whom Sargent associated were Dennis Miller Bunker, Carroll Beckwith, Edwin Austin Abbey (who also worked on the Boston Public Library murals), Francis David Millet, Wilfrid de Glehn, Jane Emmet de Glehn and Claude Monet, whom Sargent painted.

He developed a life-long friendship with fellow painter Paul César Helleu, whom he met in Paris in 1878 when Sargent was twenty-two and Helleu was eighteen. Sargent painted both Helleu and his wife Alice on several occasions, most memorably in the impressionistic Paul Helleu Sketching with his Wife, 1889. His supporters included Henry James, Isabella Steward Gardner, (who commissioned and purchased works from Sargent and sought his advice on other acquisitions) and Edward VII, whose recommendation for knighthood the artist declined.

Sargent was, as they say, "extremely private regarding his personal life," though the painter Jacques-Émile Blanche, who was one of his early sitters, said — after his death — that Sargent's sex life "was notorious in Paris, and in Venice, positively scandalous. He was a frenzied bugger." Was the bugger refernce as in "buggery"?. As homophobic scholars put it, "the truth of this may never be established." Some have gone so far as to boldly suggest that Sargent was homosexual. He had personal associations with Prince Edmond de Polignac and Count Robert de Montesquiou (the model for Des Esseintes in Huysman's A Rebours, and even more famously, the Baron de Charlus in Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, and, in real life, if you will, Prince Polignac's life-long lover, as well), two of the most notorious homosexuals of the age.

Sargent's male nudes reveal complex and well-considered artistic sensibilities about the male physique and sensuality; particularly evident in his portrait of Thomas E. McKeller but also in Tommies Bathing (both above), nude sketches for Hell and Judgement, and his portraits of young men, like Bartholomy Maganosco and Head of Olimpio Fusco .

There were friendships with women, as well, and a similar sensualism informs his female portrait and figure studies (notably Egyptian Girl, 1891). The likelihood of an affair with Louise Burkhardt, the model for Lady with the Rose, and the first wife of author J.R. Ackerley's father is accepted by Sargent scholars. Sargent's friends went so far as to wonder if he and Burckhardt had formed a romantic attachment. His enthusiasm while creating the picture of her probably instigated the rumors, but a mutual friend learns from Sargent in 1882 that "he does not care a straw for her." Despite numerous friendships with women throughout his life, this is the only episode to cause associates to doubt his status as a "committed bachelor." His sensuous, unparalleled appreciation of male beauty leaps off the canvas to this day.

1941 – On this date the pioneering British bluesman Long John Baldry was born (d.2005). Born John William Baldry in England, he grew to 6' 7" which resulted in the nickname "Long" John. Gifted with a deep, rich voice, he was one of the first British vocalists to sing blues in clubs.

In the early 1960s, he sang with the seminal band, Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, with whom he recorded the first British blues album in 1962, "R&B at the Marquee." At stages, future Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Brian Jones played in the band. The Rolling Stones supported Baldry in their first concert at the Marquee Club. Later, Baldry was the announcer introducing The Stones on their US-only live album, "Got Live if You Want It!," in 1966.

Baldry became friends with Paul McCartney after a show at the Cavern Club in Liverpool in the early 1960s, leading to an invitation to play on one of The Beatles 1964 TV specials. In 1963, Baldry joined the Cyril Davies R&B All Stars with Jimmy Page on guitar and Nicky Hopkins playing piano. He took over in 1964 after the death of Cyril Davies. It became Long John Baldry and his Hoochie Coochie Men featuring Rod Stewart on vocals and Geoff Bradford on guitar. Stewart was recruited after Baldry heard him busking a Muddy Waters song at Twickenham station after Stewart had been to a gig at Eel Pie Island.

In 1965, the Hoochie Coochie Men became Steampacket with Baldry and Stewart as male vocalists, Julie Driscoll as the female vocalist and Brian Auger on Hammond organ. After Steampacket broke up in 1966, Baldry formed Bluesology featuring Reg Dwight on keyboards and Elton Dean, later of Soft Machine, as well as Caleb Quaye on guitar. Dwight adopted the name "Elton John" (taking his first name from another member of the band, Elton Dean, and his surname from Baldry).

In 1967, he recorded a pop song "Let the Heartaches Begin" that went to number one in Britain, followed by a 1968 top 20 hit titled "Mexico", which was the theme of the UK Olympic team that year. "Let the Heartaches Begin" made the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 in the US.

Baldry was openly gay during the early 1960s when homosexuality was still criminalised and medicalised. Baldry supported Elton John in coming to terms with his own sexuality. In 1978 his album Baldry's Out announced his formal coming out, and he addressed sexuality issues on A Thrill's a Thrill, a song on the LP.

Bluesology broke up in 1968, with Baldry continuing his solo career and John forming a songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin. In 1969, Elton John tried to commit suicide after relationship problems with a woman. Taupin and Baldry, who was by now openly Gay, found him, and Baldry talked him out of marrying the woman, helping make John comfortable with his sexuality. The song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" from "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" was about the experience.

In 1971, Elton John and Stewart each produced one side of "It Ain't Easy" which became Baldry's most popular album and made the top 100 of the US album charts. The album featured "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll" which became his most successful song in the US. John's first tour of the US was this time. Baldry's 1972 album "Everything Stops For Tea" made the lower reaches of the US album charts.

After time in New York City and Los Angeles in 1978, Baldry settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he became Canadian. He toured the west coast, as well as the U.S. Northwest. Baldry also toured the Canadian east, including one 1985 show in Kingston, Ontario, where audience members repeatedly called for the title track from his 1979 album "Baldry's Out!" - to which he replied, "I'll say he is!"

He played his last live show in Columbus, Ohio, on July 19, 2004.

1954 – Today is the birthday of Felipe Rose, better known as "the Indian guy from The Village People." He was born in New York and grew up in Brooklyn. He's part American Indian (Lakota) and part Puerto-Rican (on his mother's side). He actually studied dance with the Ballet de Puerto Rico and was later discovered by the music producer Jacques Morali while working as a bartender and dancing in a New York gay club and recruited for a new disco group he was forming.

While the producers were busy recruiting and preparing the other members of the group, Rose was sent to Paris where he choreographed a native dance number for the Crazy Horse Saloon. When he returned to the U.S., he suggested that the other members of the group wear uniforms representing different "manly" occupations in New York's Greenwich Village.The rest as they say is history. His hits with the Village People hits include Macho Man (1978), YMCA (1978), In The Navy (1979), Go West (1979), Can't Stop the Music (1980)

In 2000, Rose began to work on his solo career. His single "Trails of Tears" was nominated for 3 Native American Music Awards for Best Historical Recording, Song of the Year and Best Producer. In 2002, Rose was the opening act of the 5th Annual Native American Music Awards and won a NAMMY Award for the Best Historical Recording.

In 2005 Rose called up the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC to offer them his framed gold record for the disco group's 1978 megahit "Y.M.C.A." The staff of the new museum had never received such a call but were delighted to accept the items into their collection. The Washington Post's writer Hank Stuever opined that the museum accepted the record "on the precept that sooner or later they might need such an artifact of a bygone era, perhaps to flesh out a future exhibit on the folkloric value of disco, and native cultural responses to it."

1974 – Chinese Gay Rights Pioneer,GLBT activist and attorney Zhou Dan came out to his friends in 1998 and the media in 2003. A champion of GLBT rights in China, Zhou writes articles on Chinese gay and lesbian Web sites. Although many GLBT Chinese use pseudonyms, Zhou uses his real name. After revealing his sexuality to a Shanghai newspaper in 2003, Zhou appeared across China in newspapers and magazines and on television. Earlier that year, he established the Shanghai Hotline for Sexual Minorities.

One generation removed from the persecution of gays under the People's Republic of China, Chinese gays encounter different obstacles than their American counterparts. Many Chinese believe that homosexuality exists only in the western world. The absence of legal protection and the threat of social isolation keep most Chinese GLBT individuals in the closet.

Zhou also fights for rights of people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS in China, by advocating a human-rights-based approach to the epidemic.

In 2004, Zhou attended Yale Law School's China Law Center as a visiting scholar. In 2006, he taught China's first graduate class on homosexuality at Fudan University in Shanghai.

1986 – Kieron Richardson, born in Eccles, Greater Manchester, England, is an English actor and Presenter best known for playing the role of Ste Hay in Hollyoaks.

After appearing briefly in the late night Hollyoaks: In the City, Richardson was offered the role of Ste Hay in the early evening Hollyoaks where he appeared for 19 episodes. The character was written out of the show after stealing a car, which resulted in a spectacular crash and his character getting sent to prison. He returned to Hollyoaks on 25 September 2007, and has been a regular cast member since.

Richardson has also made appearances in Holby City, Heartbeat and the feature film Fragments, as well as the pantomime Cinderella as Prince Charming at The Embassy Theatre, Skegness in 2006.

Richardson took part in 2010 series of ITV's Dancing on Ice and was paired with series newcomer Brianne Delcourt. He reached the final, finishing in third place.

In 2011, Richardson and his Hollyoaks ex co-star Bronagh Waugh started presenting on radio station Gaydio.

On 15 September 2010, Richardson revealed on television programme This Morning that he is gay, and accepted it at the age of 20. He was inspired to come out by X Factor winner Joe McElderry. In July 2014, Richardson received a torrent of homophobic abuse via social networking site Twitter. That month Richardson announced his intention to marry long-term partner Carl Hyland the following year. In April 2015, the couple were married in a star-studded ceremony in the Peak District.

In December 2016, Richardson announced they were expecting twins via surrogacy. They have twins born in 2017, a boy and girl.

2009 – On this date a landmark of sorts occurred on American daytime television when after months of teasing and steamy kisses, the soap opera As The World Turns featured the boyfriends Luke and Noah finally having sex in a breakthrough episode for daytime television.

2012 – A firestorm was set off by the revelation that a Canadian government lawyer had filed a document in a divorce case stating that same-sex marriages entered into by foreign couples who reside in jurisdictions that do not recognize same-sex marriage are not valid in Canada.

The statement was at first widely regarded as an attempt to undermine same-sex marriage by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. After the legal brief had been denounced roundly both in Canada and abroad, the government announced that it had no intention of reopening the question of same-sex marriage and that it recognized as valid the same-sex marriages of foreign nationals.

[beekindac]

❁A coneflower!❁

Did you know, purple coneflowers are echinacea? Yep, that's right, the cool purple flowers watercolorists LOVE to paint, is one of the most important medicinal plants used by Native Americans and US Settlers. It was used to treat inflammatory conditions and even as a source of 'water' during periods of drought when water was otherwise scarce. Today, we see it in teas and supplements for colds and other maladies. So, here's to the mighty, and extremely beautiful, purple coneflower - otherwise known as echinacea.

[brooklynmuseum]

Happy #InternationalWomensDay!

These recent acquisitions to our American Art Collection celebrate two women artists whose intrepid travels in Europe informed much of their oeuvres.   

Emily Sargent’s and Loïs Mailou Jones’s watercolors each depict scenes in Venice, Italy, over 50 years apart. Sargent, a prolific watercolorist, represents the quiet religious interior of the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, leaving an area of unpainted paper that reveals her artistic process. Jones, who was also an art professor at Howard University, employs loose brushstrokes and demonstrates an interest in light effects that are characteristic of the Impressionist style she learned in Paris. 

Today we recognize the accomplishments of both women and their work abroad. We’re proud to have these watercolors as part of our permanent collection.

🎨 Loïs Mailou Jones (American, 1905-1998). The Bridge, 1938. Watercolor and graphite on paper. American Art. Robert A. Levinson Fund, purchased in honor of Saundra Williams-Cornwell and W. Don Cornwell for their two decades of stalwart generosity and dedication to the Brooklyn Museum, 2022.8. → Emily Sargent (American, 1857 - 1936). Interior of the Frari, 1885. Pencil and watercolor. American Art. Anonymous gift, 2022.57.1.

[mybeingthere]

Flowers of eucalyptus are sublime.

Eucalyptus is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees. It is much argued about around the world - at present eucalyptus is the world most planted tree. It is used for timber, healing properties of bark and leaves, honey-making, dyes for silk and wool, repelling mosquitos and food supplement. History tells us a few difficult facts too: "In 1787, when a fleet of ships laden with English criminals and their keepers arrived in Australia’s Botany Bay for purposes of colonization, these newcomers were unprepared for the environment they found. Australian life had evolved for millions of years in isolation from the flora and fauna of the American, European, Asian, and African land masses. 

This was as true of the Australian gum, or eucalyptus tree, as it was of the kangaroo — both species for which no close cousins could be found on the shores of the West. Historian and art critic John Hughes, in his book on the colonization of Australia, The Fatal Shore, says that “it took at least two decades for colonial watercolorists to get the gum trees right, so that they did not look like English oaks or elms.”

Australia’s aborigines had lived with the eucalyptus as with the kangaroo and the wallaby and the dingo for millennia — indeed, eucalyptus composed (and today still composes) three-quarters of all Australian forest. The trees were indispensable to the natives; rickety canoes were fashioned from the bark; and during the frequent droughts, stores of life-sustaining water were squeezed from the roots. The English, unfamiliar with this lore, sometimes died of thirst on ground in which water-rich eucalyptus roots abounded.

If the Australian aborigines were never to extend beyond their homeland in a great migrant flood, the eucalyptus tree had a different fate in store. It was to be transplanted to regions all over the globe — from Ethiopia and Madagascar to Spain, Israel, Kenya, Brazil, and California. A United Nations study from the 1950s holds that eucalyptus is an exceedingly valuable tree for purposes of reforestation and industry and advocated its liberal use in developing areas.

In 1858, William C. Walker — owner of the Golden Gate Nursery in San Francisco — published a handwritten catalogue in which he advertised three species of eucalyptus for sale at five to ten dollars each. An article in the 1902 issue of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Bureau of Forestry Bulletin” provides additional history of the eucalyptus in California."

  https://www.sandiegoreader.com/.../cover-ecupalyptus-it-is/

[playitagin]

1967 – Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker.

While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching.

Hopper created subdued drama out of commonplace subjects 'layered with a poetic meaning', inviting narrative interpretations. He was praised for "complete verity" in the America he portrayed. His career benefited significantly from his marriage to fellow-artist Josephine Nivison, who contributed much to his work, both as a life-model and as a creative partner.

[ultraheydudemestuff]

Burchfield Homestead Society Museum

867 E. 4th St.

Salem, OH

The Burchfield Homestead was the boyhood home of American watercolorist Charles E. Burchfield. It is located in Salem, Ohio, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Charles Burchfield was noted for his paintings of scenes in and around this home. Art historian Henry Adams, curator of American Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, called the house “a building of extraordinary significance.”

Charles Burchfield grew up in Salem, Ohio, and is considered one of America's premier watercolorists. He moved to upstate New York where his career and reputation as an artist flourished. The neighborhood and home in Salem where he was raised have not significantly changed since Burchfield lived there. The inspiration for many of his works was the scenes visible from the windows of the home.

The Burchfield Homestead was placed with the National Register of Historical Places in March 23, 1999. In August 1999, the Burchfield Homestead Museum opened after years of fund-raising and construction to restore Burchfield's home. Today, visitors can stand inside Burchfield's boyhood home in Salem, look out a window at the unchanged neighborhood, and see the reality of what Burchfield saw in 1915. To see what his fertile imagination added to his views from the "eyes" of the house, one must study his paintings of those window views - paintings embued with his affection for his mother, siblings, friends and home town.

[linarei]

Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. His career benefited decisively from his marriage to fellow-artist Josephine Nivison, who contributed much to his work, both as a life-model and as a creative partner. Hopper was a minor-key artist, creating subdued drama out of commonplace subjects 'layered with a poetic meaning', inviting narrative interpretations, often unintended. He was praised for 'complete verity' in the America he portrayed.

[lboogie1906]

Samuel Joseph Brown Jr. (1907–1994) was a watercolorist, printmaker, and educator. He was the first African American artist hired to produce work for the Public Works of Art Project. He depicted the lives of African Americans in his paintings. He worked primarily in watercolor and oils, and he produced portraits, landscapes, and prints.

His paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.

He was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, and moved with his family to Philadelphia in 1917. His father was a mattress maker and upholsterer and his mother was a seamstress.

He graduated from the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art. He received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania.

After retiring from teaching in 1971, he continued to paint and ventured into sculpture and jewelry-making. He produced portraits of school administrators, prominent Philadelphians, family, friends, and religious leaders.

In 1986, the Brandywine Workshop and others created a scholarship in his name at the University of the Arts.

In 1990, he was represented in the show “Against the Odds: African American Artists and the Harmon Foundation” at the Newark Art Museum in New Jersey.

In 2015, a Brown watercolor The Odd Sister (1973) was part of a group show at the Woodmere Art Museum titled “We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s.” The painting was shown in 1975 at the Second World Black and African Festival of Art and Culture at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He was the regional general chairman of FESTAC (1973-1975).

In 2021, his painting Urlene, Age Nine was featured in the Delaware Art Museum exhibition, Afro-American Images 1971: The Vision of Percy Ricks.

He married Teacher Miriam Lois Ellison (1938). #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[pagansphinx]

Samuel Joseph Brown (American, 1907-1994) • 1986 • Watercolor

Samuel Joseph Brown Jr. (1907–1994) was a watercolorist, printmaker, and educator. He was the first African American artist hired to produce work for the Public Works of Art Project, a precursor to the Work Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Brown often depicted the lives of African Americans in his paintings. He worked primarily in watercolor and oils, and he produced portraits, landscapes and prints. – Wikipedia

Celebrating the work of African-American artists during Black History Month.

[watercolorpaintingsworld]

Edward Hopper's Watercolors: A Unique Vision of America

Edward Hopper was one of the most influential American realist painters of the 20th century. He is best known for his oil paintings of urban scenes, such as Nighthawks and New York Movie, that capture the loneliness, isolation, and mystery of modern life. However, he was also a prolific and talented watercolorist, who used this medium to explore different aspects of his artistic vision. In this…