American Works of Art on Paper at the Norton Museum

Written by Clayton Vanfossen Sunday, 27 February 2011 22:31

West Palm Beach, FL – The Norton Museum of Art presents American Masterpieces: Watercolors and Pastels, a tightly focused exhibition of some of the best, but perhaps lesser-known treasures of the Museum’s American collection.  This exhibition through February 4, 2007, will feature remarkable works on paper by American artists of the late 19th and 20th centuries, executed in a variety of luminous media including gouache, pastel, and watercolor. 

American Masterpieces will delight visitors with thirteen treasures that exemplify the exceptional quality of works produced by American artists, from Winslow Homer (1836–1910) to Sam Francis (1923–1994).  A wide range of genres is represented, among them: still life, landscape, seascape, one animal study, two abstract compositions, and several depictions of the human figure.  Most works are by painters whose names are familiar to lovers of American art — John Marin, Milton Avery, Andrew Wyeth, and Willem de Kooning —though the achievement of lesser known masters—Floridian Jane Peterson and William Henry Stevens—is also celebrated.

Ralph and Elizabeth Norton left behind a rich heritage of collecting which included works of art on paper—drawings, watercolors, pastels, and prints—a legacy sustained over the last sixty-five years by the gifts of many donors and the judicious purchases of successive directors and curators of the Norton Museum of Art.  Today, the Museum's collection of such works is distinguished by numerous masterpieces from the hands of both European and American artists who were active from the mid-19th century to the present day. 

The Norton Museum of Art is open Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m.  Visit www.norton.org.