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Watercolor Sea and Sun
by Six Artists Essay
Fairfield Porter, Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Violet Oakley, Martin Mower, John Marin,
and Wendy Klemperer
How watercolor artists
paint a body of water and sun
while looking directly into the sun
during sunrise.
Sunrise
Fairfield Porter (1907-1975) American
Watercolor and graphite on paper,
22" x 30" (w x h), circa 1974-1975
From Hirschl and Adler Gallery:
Fairfield Porter did his best work during the last fifteen years of his life. His style loosened somewhat, and he incorporated more abstract forms and colors and recorded a freer and more immediate impression of his subjects. In his lifelong pursuit of realistic, non-abstract subjects, however, Porter was far ahead of his time, particularly in painting portraits of his family and friends, a genre that wasn't taken seriously by the art world until years later.
Sunrise is one of three studies done in preparation for Porter's color lithograph Sunrise. It's an impressionistic view of the sea and sky taken from the beach near Porter's Southampton home.
Sunrise: Whiting Fishing at Margate
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) English
Watercolor on paper, 20" x 15" (w x h), 1822
Tate Museum, London, UK
Tate catalogue (edited):
"Although described by Finberg as a sunset, this atmospheric color of the sun low over the sea has been tentatively linked by Eric Shanes to the 1822 watercolor Sunrise, Whiting Fishing at Margate (private collection). The sun in the finished composition is noticeably off-center to the left, clear of the cliffs occupying the right-hand half of the horizon, and Turner seems to be experimenting with a variation in asymmetrical placement."
Study of Sun and its Reflection on Lake George
Violet Oakley (1874-1961)-American
Watercolor on paper
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015
From Woodmere Art Museum (edited):
Violet Oakley (1874-1961), during the American Renaissance, a period of cultural renewal at the turn of the twentieth century, was the most renowned woman in the cultural life of the country, achieving international fame when she was commissioned to create a monumental series of murals in the new Pennsylvania State Capitol. The Philadelphia Public Ledger asserted that "the history of art in America probably records no greater distinction awarded to a woman than the selection of Miss Oakley to perform so important a work."
At a time when women artists usually concentrated on domestic themes, a prominent art critic observed that... "[Oakley's] vision of life moved outward in ever-widening circles, embracing the striving of all men and women..."
Oakley, a role model for aspiring female professionals for two decades before women won the right to vote, supported higher education for women by designing works of art for Bryn Mawr College, Vassar College, and Sarah Lawrence College. She was the second woman appointed to the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In her later years she fashioned a role for herself as an activist promoting gender and racial equality, international government, and world peace. She drew portraits of the delegates to the League of Nations and the United Nations. Admired as a public intellectual as well as an artist, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Literature from Delaware College in 1918, and an honorary doctorate in Law from Drexel University in 1948.
Sun Spots (Stonington, Maine)
John Marin (1870-1953) American
Watercolor and charcoal on paper, 20" x 17" (w x h), 1920
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
From John Marin Part 1, A Stylistic Analysis by Sheldon Reich, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1970 (edited):
John Marin spent the summer of 1920 in Stonington... The motif of the sun had always obsessed Marin... [The sun spots] are like a the after-image caused by staring into too long into a brilliant sun... Stylistically, the most significant factors in Sun Spots are a clarity and simplicity of composition... Sun Spots... a Maine landscape, is a relatively abstract statement by Marin.
Nahant Shore /
Seascape, Mahomet Shore (Massachusetts)
Martin Mower (1870-1960) American
Watercolor and graphite on paper, 7" x 5" (w x h), circa 1896
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA
Martin Mower, born in Lynn Massachusetts, painted in oil and watercolor and pastel. He sketched drawings, as well as worked in stained glass and photography. He was a friend of Isabella Stewart Gardner, who included nine Martin Mower paintings and drawings in her Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Also included in the ISG displays is some of their correspondence from 1923 with a mention of Martin's wife. "Dearest Mrs. Gardner, Evelyn and I are immeasurably cheered and delighted by the gift from you..." Martin and his wife, Evelyn Mower, lived at 6 Craigie Circle, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He died at 90-years-old in Vancouver, British, Columbia, Canada.
The Ship, Seascape #4
Wendy Klemperer (1958- ) American
Watercolor on paper, 2019
Wendy Klemperer earned a bachelor's in biochemistry at Harvard before moving to NYC to pursue art full time, earning a B.F.A. in sculpture at Pratt Institute in 1983. She's an accomplished metal sculptor.
In 2019, she was an artist at sea with a scientific research team at the University of New Hampshire. Her three-week artist residency at sea led to pencil sketches of the crew members highlighting the collaborative nature of scientific research, and her watercolors of the sea and ocean life celebrated the scientific and experiential rewards of conducting environmental research outdoors. Her watercolors from her time aboard the ship were displayed at the UNH Museum of Art.
Wendy Klemperer was born in 1958 in Boston, and raised in Cambridge and Watertown. She explored her passion for animals and nature during summers spent at her grandmother's country house in New Hampshire. Her sculptures are exhibited across the United States. While doing this essay I realized I've driven by a sculpture of hers on the way to Maine Audubon, and osprey and nest on Martin's Point Bridge in Falmouth, Maine. Wendy Klemperer lives in Brooklyn, NY and Nelson, NH.
Wendy Klemperer's website is HERE.
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