Nan Watson
Nan Watson was an American artist known for the flower paintings, portraits, and still lifes she made during the 1920s and 1930s. Showing frequently in group and solo exhibitions, she received praise for both the aesthetic and technical qualities of her work. Critics described her paintings as sincere, forthright, and direct and said they demonstrated good draftsmanship, harmonious composition, and fresh color values. In 1929, the art historian Lloyd Goodrich said, "One knows no other painter of flowers who captures so completely their delicate life without becoming in the least sentimental about it or lapsing into merely technical fireworks." In 1932, Edward Alden Jewell, the principal critic for the New York Times published a lengthy critique of one of her shows. In it, he wrote, "The field is thronged with artists who paint flowers; many of these artists are highly successful, though few are seen to arrive at the goal of superlative distinction. Among those who do attain this coveted goal, Nan Watson must certainly be numbered." At the same time, Margaret Breuning of the Evening Post wrote concerning the flower paintings, "It is the ability of the artist to give lyric transcription of natural forms in terms of design which imbues these canvases with their significance." Concerning Watson's portraits, Breuning noted a "surety of draftsmanship" and Watson's "fine perception that pierces to the essentials". Similarly, an unsigned review of 1928 said Watson succeeded in producing a "candor, directness, fidelity to personal conceptions that one finds delightful in a world where there much conformity to standards of aesthetic performance from which the timid or the conventional may not deviate." This critic concluded, "Not only sensitive perception and technical skill are to be enjoyed in this engaging exhibition, but the revelation of personality that has gone into the making of each canvas."
Early life and training
Watson's Scottish family emigrated to the United States in 1878. She was raised in Buffalo, New York and attended a small, private girls' school called the Buffalo Seminary. When she was 18 in 1895, she and her aunt Grace Paterson traveled to Scotland and lived for nearly three years with their family in Edinburgh. During that time, Watson traveled to Paris to study art at the Académie Colarossi, a school that had two advantages from her point of view: it admitted female students and it allowed these students to work from live male models. After she returned to Buffalo in 1898, Watson studied at the art school of the Buffalo Art Students' League. In the fall of 1906, Watson moved to Manhattan to study at the Art Students League of New York and while there took instruction from the well-known portraitist, William Merritt Chase.Career in art
Between the fall of 1900 and the spring of 1906, she was the sole instructor in the art department of the University of South Dakota. During the two years before she took this job and during vacations during the following two, she continued to participate in regular exhibitions of the society. Reviewing one of these shows in 1900, a critic noted that Watson was "a young artist who shows considerable feeling and sentiment in her work". During these years, Watson maintained a studio in Buffalo in which she painted and held classes in drawing and painting. In 1901, a reporter noted that she had received "many orders for portraits".After moving to Manhattan in 1906, Watson continued to reside and work in the city for the next 27 years. She moved to Washington, D.C. in 1933 when her husband, art critic Forbes Watson, was appointed technical director a fine arts advisory committee of the Treasury Department. In 1934, she took a job as a clerk in that agency's Section of Painting and Sculpture while her husband was then technical director of the agency's Public Works of Art Project. At the end of World War II, the couple moved from Washington to Gaylordsville, Connecticut and after her husband's death in 1960 Watson returned to Washington where she lived out the few years left in her life.
Solo, duo, and three-artist exhibitions, 1916–1937
In what seems to have been her first major appearance in a Manhattan gallery, Watson contributed portraits to an exhibition at the National Academy of Design in 1916. A critic for the New York Tribune complained that in general the portraits in this show made a "poor showing" but said the portraits of Watson and a few others were "admirable", "sincere", and "full of character". An article in the Sunday magazine section of the New York Times said one of her portraits was "a fine piece of work", both "fresh in color and remarkably certain in tone values". The author added that it was "not merely good painting, but good portraiture, which means that it gives us the artist's idea of the sitter and immediately interests us in that idea." Early in December, she was given a solo exhibition at Knoedler's, including sixteen portraits and flower paintings. A critic for the New York Times said they showed an "artistic character without mannerism" and credited Watson with an "unpretending talent that occasionally rises to a high level of artistic accomplishment".In 1919, Watson showed flower paintings at the Whitney Studio Gallery along with two other artists, Mahonri Young and Herman M. Linding. A critic for American Art News commended "a strongly painted colorful collection of her always attractive flower pieces" in this show and, in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Hamilton Easter Field praised her artistry and her avoidance of the tricks commonly used to distract from poor workmanship.
In 1923, the Wildenstein Galleries in New York gave Watson a solo exhibition of flower paintings and portraits. A critic for Art News called it a "brilliant show" having paintings "brilliant in color" that were "brilliantly done" and a critic for the Morning Telegraph wrote of the "beautiful color and arrangement" of her work as well as its "form and balance". The Times critic said the show was so "gay and jolly it is refreshing and a pleasure to see it" but regretted that the portraits lacked the spontaneity of the flower paintings. Writing in the Evening Post, Margaret Breuning said the flower studies revealed a "skillful combination of delicate precision in rendering the texture and contours of flowers with a broad harmony of composition that makes a singularly glowing painting in which each detail contributes its special accent."
When, in 1928, the Rehn Galleries gave Watson a solo show of flower paintings and a few portraits, New York critics noticed the event. A critic for the New York Sun said Watson was "a flower painter of repute" who also made attractive portraits having excellent likenesses. The New York Times said she had a sensitive eye for color a notable feeling for arrangement". A critic for Art News said the portraits were "admirably unmannered". The Evening Post reproduced a portrait of Dorothy Varian and described the painting in detail. The author noted the "delicacy and power combined" in the painting as well as its "candor, directness, fidelity to personal conceptions". Helen Appleton Read, writing in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, said of the flower paintings "they are not decorations, follow no formula of design or color, but exist for themselves as works of art." She added: "The directness of the statement is disarming. In presenting no definite manner or striking arrangement, they are apparently charming expert bits of realism, lovely because the model was so in life."
In 1929, the Whitney Studio Galleries gave Watson a duo exhibition with the landscape painter, Arthur E. Cederquist. Writing in the New York Times, Lloyd Goodrich called her a "portraitist of flowers", whose paintings were "alive with the freshness and the fragile brilliancy of their subjects." He concluded: "One knows no other painter of flowers who captures so completely their delicate life without becoming in the least sentimental about it or lapsing into merely technical fireworks." In the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Helen Appleton Read's critique credited Watson with "an increased mastery of form" and said she maintained "a sincere and personal appreciation of the subject and a simple, direct method of presenting it." The article was accompanied by a reproduction of a portrait of the head and shoulders of a woman entitled, simply, "Portrait". Read said the work combined "the power-like grace characteristic of the flower compositions with sensitive appreciation of character." This portrait is shown above, image no. 1.
In 1932, when Watson showed recent oil paintings in a solo exhibition at the Kraushaar Galleries on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, critics, again, took notice. One said she showed "work of the highest quality... honest, unpretentious, and beautifully 'felt'". Another saw "surety of draftsmanship", "fine perception that pierces to the essentials", and "well-related color". A third said "her ability to invest her subjects with charm and grace adds to their integrity as works of art and makes increasingly preposterous the contention held by many of the so-called moderns that to be humanly charming is to lose aesthetic integrity." Edward Alden Jewell, the principal critic for the New York Times commented on Watson's "quiet passion of understanding that gets to the heart of essences". He also called attention to portraits that were, to him, " quite as subtle and gracefully wrought" as the flower paintings. One of these, "Beatrice Reading", is shown above, image no. 2.
In 1937, she presented a solo exhibition at the Kraushaar Galleries. Reviewing the show, Howard Devree of the New York Times reported that the watercolors she showed revealed "her direct feeling for the medium and an unfailing decorative taste." A reviewer for Art News said the paintings were "unpretentious watercolors, fragile in feeling and delicate in color." Watson was not given a retrospective exhibition during her life or after death but the Whitney Museum of American Art included its holdings of her paintings in its 2011 show called "Breaking Ground: The Whitney’s Founding Collection".