Gallery Talk: American Watercolors, 1880–1990: Into the Light

This event requires a reservation; see further details below.

Conservator Penley Knipe and curator Miriam Stewart will lead an in-depth look at the materials and techniques used to create the varied works in the exhibition American Watercolors, 1880–1990: Into the Light, on view from May 20 to August 13, 2023. Learn about watercolor cakes, papers, and techniques, such as “wet-into-wet,” “resist,” and “scraping.”

American Watercolors, 1880–1990 presents more than a hundred compelling and rarely seen watercolors by both well-known and historically underrepresented American artists selected from the Harvard Art Museums’ deep and diverse holdings. Discover how watercolorists leveraged the imaginative and experimental capacity of the medium to create marvelously diverse works over more than a century.

Led by:
Penley Knipe, Philip and Lynn Straus Senior Conservator of Works of Art on Paper and Head of Paper Lab, Straus Center for Conservation
Miriam Stewart, Curator of the Collection, Division of European and American Art

Gallery talks are limited to 18 people, and it is required that you reserve your place. At 10am the day of the talk, reservations will open and may be arranged online through this form. The gallery talk reservation will also serve as your general museum reservation. If required, visitors will pay the museum admission fee upon arrival.

Please meet in the Calderwood Courtyard, in front of the digital screens between the shop and the admissions desk.

Please visit the museum visit page to learn about our general policies for visiting the museums.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the Alexander S., Robert L., and Bruce A. Beal Exhibition Fund, the William Amory Fund, the Rabb Family Exhibitions Fund, and an anonymous donor. Related programming is supported by the M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series Endowment Fund. This catalogue was made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Publication Funds and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.

The Harvard Art Museums are committed to accessibility for all visitors. For anyone requiring accessibility accommodations for our programs, please contact us at am_register@harvard.edu at least 48 hours in advance.