Europe(Water color)
Watercolor was less popular on the Continent, though many fine examples were produced by French painters, including Eugène Delacroix, François Marius Granet, Henri-Joseph Harpignies and the satirist Honoré Daumier.
Unfortunately the careless and excessive adoption of brightly colored, petroleum–derived aniline dyes (and pigments compounded from them), which all fade rapidly on exposure to light, and the efforts to properly conserve the 20,000 Turner paintings inherited by the British Museum in 1857, led to an examination and negative re-evaluation of the permanence of pigments in watercolor. This caused a sharp decline in their status and market value. Nevertheless, isolated exponents continued to prefer and develop the medium into the 20th century. In Europe, gorgeous landscape and maritime watercolors were produced by Paul Signac, and Paul Cézanne developed a watercolor painting style consisting entirely of overlapping small glazes of pure color.
20th century
Among the many 20th-century artists who produced important works in watercolor, mention must be made of Wassily Kandinsky, Emil Nolde, Paul Klee, Egon Schiele and Raoul Dufy; in America the major exponents included Charles Burchfield, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, and John Marin, 80% of whose total output is in watercolor. In this period American watercolor (and oil) painting was often imitative of European Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, but significant individualism flourished within "regional" styles of watercolor painting in the 1920s to 1940s, in particular the "Cleveland School" or "Ohio School" of painters centered around the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the "California Scene" painters, many of them associated with Hollywood animation studios or the Chouinard Art Institute (now California Institute of the Arts). The California painters exploited their state's varied geography, Mediterranean climate and "automobility" to reinvigorate the outdoor or "plein air" tradition; among the most influential were Phil Dike, Millard Sheets, Rex Brandt, Dong Kingman and Milford Zornes. The California Water Color Society, founded in 1921 and later renamed the National Watercolor Society, sponsored important exhibitions of their work.
Although the rise of abstract expressionism, and the trivializing influence of amateur painters and advertising- or workshop-influenced painting styles, led to a temporary decline in the popularity of watercolor painting after c.1950, watercolors continue to be utilized by artists such as Joseph Raffael, Andrew Wyeth, Philip Pearlstein, Eric Fischl, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer and Francesco Clemente. In Spain, Ceferí Olivé created an innovative style, also followed by his students, such as Rafael Alonso López-Montero and Francesc Torné Gavaldà. In Mexico the major exponents are Ignacio Barrios, Edgardo Coghlan, Ángel Mauro, Vicente Mendiola and Pastor Velázquez.
Modern watercolor paints are now as durable and colorful as oil or acrylic paints, and the recent renewed interest in drawing and multimedia art has also stimulated demand for fine works in watercolor. As art markets continue to expand, painting societies continue to add members and aging baby boomers increasingly retire to more contemplative hobbies, watercolor on both the amateur and professional levels continues to become more and more popular.
An example of contemporary Conceptual Water color. David Horvitz, from his series Watercolor Shoplifting series, watercolors depicting objects he's stolen that he photographs and posts online
Source: Internet
Abu Kalam Shamsuddin
Lecturer
MTCA
