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ON VIEW
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EXHIBITION
Awash with Color: Seldom-Seen Watercolor Paintings by Louisiana Artists, 7789-1989
January 21-May 21, 2016
Laura Simon Nelson Galleries,
400 Chartres Street
Free
A Two Dead Female Quail
1863; watercolor and pastel by Marie-Paoline Casbergue Coulon gift of Laura Simon Nelson, 7999.118.3
B.	The Levee at New Orleans
1959; watercolor and gouache by Boyd Cruise
gift of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond H. Kierr in memory of Robert M. Kierr, 1992.94
Local Color
The Laura Simon Nelson Galleries will showcase watercolors spanning two centuries.
The exhibition Awash with Color: Seldom-Seen Watercolor Paintings by Louisiana Artists, 1789—1989 features rarely seen watercolors from the permanent holdings ofThe Historic New Orleans Collection. These paintings are exhibited infrequently because watercolor is a delicate medium that fades easily, even in the muted light of a museum gallery. Approximately 70 paintings by artists both well known, such as Walter Anderson and Alfred Jacob Miller, and more obscure, including Joseph Richards and William Thomas Smedley, will be on display. The subjects of the paintings run the gamut from landscapes and genre scenes, to architectural drawings and advertisements, to Mardi Gras float designs and portrait miniatures on ivory.
As anyone who has painted with watercolor knows, it is an unforgiving medium, applied in transparent, delicate layers, one atop another, to build depth, form, and bulk. Using this technique, watercolor artists are able to suggest the translucency of water or the texture of decaying plaster. In the 19th century, landscapists used watercolor for preliminary sketches en plein air, as watercolor sets are easily transportable, needing only a small cup of water to work magic. Because the watery pigment dries almost instantaneously, any slips of the brush are permanently recorded. Therefore, a successful watercolorist hones his or her craft over years of practice.
Ellsworth Woodward is known for his oil paintings, but he was also a masterful watercolorist. His depiction of a Danish maid in historical costume (featured on the cover) was
2 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly