Frank Sherwin was a British artist active in the early to mid 20th century. He is best known for his delightful travel posters, as well as his traditional watercolors.
He also painted watercolors for a number of “carriage prints” (images above, bottom, with details). These were horizontal format banners displayed in railway cars for the entertainment of passengers, much the way ads are often displayed in a row above the windows in subway trains and busses here in the U.S.
Genoveva, Ludwig Richter, watercolor on paper, roughly 12 x 7 in (31 x 18 cm); in the collectin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has both a zoomable and downloadable version of th elarge image.
This painting by 19th century German painter and printmaker Adrian Ludwig Richter depicts the legend of Genoveva, a woman falsely accused of adultry while her husband was off to war. Condemmed to death, she sought refuge in the forest of Ardennes, where she and her son found shelter in a cave and were fed by a deer for six years.
In the version of the painting in the images above, bottom, I’ve done something I’ve often complained about others doing: taking an image of an artwork and cranking up the saturation to make it look “better” and “more modern”. Hopefully, in this case, I’ve done so judiciously with the intention of giving an indication of what I think the painting may have looked like when originally painted.
It’s my understanding that many watercolors from the 19th century are faded, partly from exposure to light for pigments that were less than lightfast, and partly from exposure to sulpher compounds from the pollution caused by the burgeoning industrial age, which interacted in particular with lead-based whites, yellows and reds. I’m just guessing that the painting was originally more vibrant than it is at present (perhaps even more than my rough approximation).
Winter Landscape>, Stepan Kolesnikoff, gouache
Another wonderful winter gouache painting by Stepan Kolesnikoff. As far as I have been able to tell, Kolesnikoff was born in Ukraine when it was considered part of the Russian Federation, and after studying and working in Russia for a time, settled in what is now Serbia.
Happy Winter Solstice!
Though she frequently traveled to England and the continent — and studied in Paris — Irish watercolorist Mildred Anne Butler primarily painted en plein air in the area around her home in Kilmurry.
Butler was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was a member of the Royal Academy and the Royal Watercolor Society.
She painted landscapes that were often populated with ravens, cows and other animals. To me, some of her work has a dreamy storybook feeling.
Walk of Mary across the mountains, Maximilian Liebenwein.
Maximilian Liebenwein was an Austrian/German illustrator active during the “Golden Age” of illustration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
I’m unsure what the medium is here, but it looks like watercolor and gouache to me.
I sourced the image from here, larger version here.
For more, see my previous post on Maximilian Liebenwein.
Fresh Eggs, Winslow Homer; watercolor and gouache on paper; roughly 9 x 8 inches (24 x 19 cm). Original is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, DC, which has both zoomable and downloadable images on their site.
In this simple, unassuming study of a commonplace chore, Homer shows us the ability of art to elevate the ordinary into the extraordinary, as well as demonstrating his apparently effortless command of watercolor and gouache.
The NGA provides a nicely high-resolution image (higher than in my detail crops) in which you can see his individual brush marks and the way he has mixed opaque and transparent passages with economy and flair.
