American Works on Paper 1880–1950

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Paper was where many American artists of this period worked most freely. Watercolour, once seen as a pastime, became a serious exhibition medium: Winslow Homer painted fishermen and hunters in the Adirondacks and the Caribbean in the 1880s and 1890s, and John Singer Sargent used rapid, luminous washes on his travels. Mary Cassatt made pastel central to her images of mothers and children.

In the early 20th century modernists found paper suited to speed and experiment. John Marin broke Manhattan towers and the Maine coast into shards of wash and line, Charles Demuth painted delicate flowers and acrobats, and Charles Burchfield turned Ohio houses and woods into pulsing visionary scenes. Edward Hopper took up watercolour in Gloucester in 1923. Draughtsmen such as Reginald Marsh sketched Coney Island crowds. The best sheets keep the energy of the hand close to the surface.