American Traditions in Watercolor: The Worcester Art Museum Collection

Designed to complement the publisher's previously released American Watercolors, this book appears in connection with a traveling exhibition of watercolors from the Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum. At the core of the collection are eight works by Sargent and eighteen by Homer. Reproduced in color, these pieces are set off by Walsh's essay, which compares the artists' respective approaches to the medium (both considered it suitable for serious statements) and their techniques for preserving the watercolor's impression of concision and fluidity even after reworking. In addition, Hoopes offers a history of the evolution of the American watercolor; there is an annotated, illustrated checklist of the complete Worcester watercolor collection, and Strickler contributes a history of the collection's development. Overall the book's scholarship makes the most of a collection whose significance is largely limited to the 19th and early 20th centuries. (March)