The Worcester Art Museum Announces New Exhibition, Watercolors Unboxed, Opening June 10, 2023
A Rare Opportunity to View 50 Light-Sensitive Works, Featuring Iconic Watercolorists Alongside Outliers of the Medium
Winslow Homer, Old Friends, 1894, watercolor and opaque watercolor over graphite, Museum Purchase,
1908.3
Worcester, MA—February 1, 2023— This summer, the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) will present Watercolors Unboxed, an exploration of 75 years of watercolors—from 1880 through the 1950s—through exceptional examples of the medium.
Drawn from WAM’s internationally renowned collection of watercolors, the exhibition will begin with a selection of 19th-century European watercolorists who influenced what would become a favored American art form, and will feature 50 works, including highlights by Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Rockwell Kent, and John Singer Sargent.
The exhibition will also feature drawings by artists lesser known for their work in watercolor and gouache, including Amedeo Modigliani, Gustave Baumann, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Because watercolors are especially susceptible to damage from overexposure, Watercolors Unboxed is a rare opportunity to see some of the most prized works in the Museum’s collection, many of which have not been on display at the Museum since the 1980s.
Watercolors Unboxed opens June 10, 2023, and runs through September 10, 2023.
This exhibition is organized by Nancy Kathryn Burns, WAM’s Stoddard Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs.
“The Worcester Art Museum is fortunate to be home to an outstanding collection of watercolors, with particular depth in works by late 19th- and early 20th-century American artists,” said Matthias Waschek, the Jean and Myles McDonough Director of the Worcester Art Museum.
“Watercolors Unboxed is a chance for the Museum to celebrate these strengths and to build on them to explore a broader view of watercolor as a medium.”