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watercolor

Curator's Corner

A Novembergruppe Artist: Otto Dix

Monday, November 17, 2025 | Karl Cole

The November Group (Novembergruppe) was a German group of radical, leftist-leaning artists, architects and designers who organized during the Weimar Republic after World War I (1914-1918). The group, ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: William Trost Richards

Friday, November 14, 2025 | Karl Cole

There is nothing more remarkably peace-inducing than a beautiful seascape painting. William Trost Richards was renowned for his beautiful coastal seascapes of the New England coast in all sorts of ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Thursday, September 18, 2025 | Karl Cole

Since the 1960s, Sylvia Plimack Mangold has developed a distinctive visual language that is grounded in figuration and transcends representation. Plimack Mangold has remained committed to an explo ...

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Curator's Corner

National Lighthouse Day: Dong Kingman

Thursday, August 7, 2025 | Karl Cole

It was on this day in 1789 that Congress established funding in support of building of lighthouses, beacons, buoys and public piers. On August 7 of 1989, National Lighthouse Day was established by ...

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Curator's Corner

World Watercolor Month: Kawakami Ryoka

Wednesday, July 30, 2025 | Karl Cole

Japanese artists have been proficient in water-soluble media for centuries. Early forms of water-soluble media included gofun—crushed white clam shells mixed with water and pigments—and di ...

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Curator's Corner

World Watercolor Month: Ann Hall

Monday, July 21, 2025 | Karl Cole

I have mentioned my trepidation about using watercolors before, and how I find it to be a very unforgiving medium. The fact that there have been and still are such brilliant watercolor artists justifi ...

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Curator's Corner

World Watercolor Month: Paul Cézanne

Monday, July 14, 2025 | Karl Cole

What better artist to celebrate World Watercolor Month than Paul Cézanne? His brilliant studies in watercolor clearly lay the foundations of what he called “modulation.” This is the ...

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Curator's Corner

World Watercolor Month: Donald Holden

Friday, July 11, 2025 | Karl Cole

World Watercolor Month began in 2016 as a way to honor the watercolor artists from all over the world. The art of Donald Holden is truly a fitting tribute to this artform, which in many ways can be ve ...

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Curator's Corner

A Consummate Realist: Joseph Raffael

Monday, June 23, 2025 | Karl Cole

Photorealism was a style that evolved during the 1960s in reaction to the prevalence of total abstraction seen in Abstract Expressionism, Color Field, and Minimalism—movements that dominated tha ...

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Curator's Corner

National Love a Tree Day: Sylvia P. Mangold

Friday, May 16, 2025 | Karl Cole

Mangold is very fond of the trees that were on her country property and they became frequent subjects of her paintings. She would definitely approve of National Love a Tree Day, which encourages every ...

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Curator's Corner

National Iris Day: Muhammad Zaman

Thursday, May 8, 2025 | Karl Cole

The iris is a beautiful flower that was first planted in the United States in Virginia in the 1600s. The flower started being commercially imported around 1869. The iris is the symbol for the city of ...

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Curator's Corner

National Library Week: Jacob Lawrence

Tuesday, April 8, 2025 | Karl Cole

Established in 1958, National Library Week has been sponsored by the American Library Association. It now has international recognition. National Library Week was started to encourage the support and ...

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Curator's Corner

Summer Is Waning: Georges Lepape

Monday, August 12, 2024 | Karl Cole

Once August is here, New Englanders are fond of saying, “well, summer’s almost over.” I prefer to resist that inclination, since summer always seems so short in Massachusetts anyway. ...

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Curator's Corner

Welcome to May! Charles Burchfield

Monday, May 6, 2024 | Karl Cole

To welcome the wonderful month of May, let’s look at the work of an extremely unique artist who sought not only to capture what he saw in nature, but also what he felt: Charles Burchfield. He is ...

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Curator's Corner

Black History Month: Hale Woodruff

Monday, February 5, 2024 | Karl Cole

Let’s celebrate Black artists who have brought beauty into the world through their art. This week, I’m sharing the stunning watercolors of Hale Woodruff. Since I find watercolor to be a ve ...

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Curator's Corner

Saying Goodbye to World Watercolor Month 2023

Monday, July 31, 2023 | Karl Cole

Watercolor can be a very unforgiving medium—boy, don’t I know it! I started out studying for an MFA in painting using gouache and watercolor, but my professors suggested that what I was tr ...

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