The Color of Nature: Recent Acquisitions of Landscape Watercolors is a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, DC, in which they are highlighting 15 watercolor and gouache paintings acquired in recent years.
Like drawings and other works on paper, watercolors can’t be on permanent display in museums because of their susceptibility to light damage, so museum exhibitions of watercolors are worth taking advantage of.
Unfortunately, the online presentation of the exhibition is not well organized for browsing (one of my disappointments in the NGA’s fairly recent website makeover). You must click “Related Works” in the right hand column of the exhibition’s information page to be presented with a list of the works, accompanied by tiny thumbnails (literally thumbnail size – c’mon, this is 2014, not 1994), you must then click through to the dedicated image page to view a zoomable image or follow links to download some (though not all) of the images. It’s worth the effort, though, as there are some beautiful pieces here.
To download the highest resolution versions of the images, you must sign up for a free account, but the ones that don’t require sign-up (download arrow with a single underline) are large enough to enjoy. See my post on NGA Images for more information.
The Color of Nature will be on Display in the NGA West Gallery until September 14, 2014.
(Images above, first three with detail crops: Franz Skarbina, François-Louis Français, Anton von Werner, Jules-Ferdinand Jacquemart, Henri-Joseph Harpignies, François-Auguste Ravier, Franz Kaisermann)
