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15 Famous Watercolor Artists

When the Breezing Up painting shows us three boys and their father out for a spirited sail, it’s a calm tour of the marine scene. The work of American watercolor artist Homer. The English watercolorist Turner disrupts the calmness with turbulent marine scenes portrayed in Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps.

What’s more, the German watercolor artist Dürer calms these storms with biblical displays such as the Adam and Eve watercolor painting. These watercolor artists have received worldwide acclaim for their ability to communicate through various color shades. Get insights into who they are and learn about their achievements below.

Here are 15 Famous Watercolor Artists.

1. Winslow Homer

, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This renowned American watercolor artist is remembered for his landscape paintings and illustrations. His marine themes gave him prominence as a painter.

The painter was born in Boston on February 24, 1836. He grew up in the area and started working as a Boston commercial lithographer when he was 19 years. After two years, around 1857, he began his journey as a freelance painter.

Moreover, he moved to New York City in 1859 where he opened his studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building. He started with war-related paintings which captured events of the American Civil War (1861–1865). He later enjoyed capturing scenes of childhood and young women.

In later years, the self-taught painter showcased postwar subjects. Afterward, he developed a knack for rural or idyllic scenes like farm life, children playing, and young adults courting. In 1875, he started specializing in watercolor paintings. Henceforth, most of his work focused on landscapes and working women.

One of his most celebrated works comprises the Breezing Up painting which he did in 1876. It portrayed a father and his three boys out for a spirited sail. This painting began as a watercolor that he later transformed into an oil painting. Homer passed on in Maine, U.S. aged 74 years on September 29, 1910.

His other celebrated paintings are:

• Sharpshooter on Picket Duty (1862)
• Home, Sweet Home (1863)
• Prisoners from the Front (1866)
• A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876)
• Blackboard (1877)
• The Green Hill (1878)
• Peach Blossoms (1878)
• Schooner at Sunset (1880)

Find out more Famous Landscape Painters.

2. M. W. Turner

He was an acclaimed English romantic painter cum printmaker as well as a watercolor artist. His masterworks expressed imaginative landscapes and turbulent marine scenes.

Turner was born in London on 23 April 1775 to a middle-class family. He joined the Royal Academy of Arts in 1789 at 14 years of age. As early as 15 years, he made his first watercolor painting. It had the title, A View of the Archbishop’s Palace, Lambeth. This creation secured a place in the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition in 1790.

His other captivating works include:

• The Rising Squall – Hot Wells from St Vincent’s Rock Bristol (1793)
• Fishermen at Sea (1796)
• Sun Rising through Vapour (1807)
• Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812)
• Dido building Carthage (1815)

Additionally, Turner passed away in London on 19 December 1851 aged 76 years. At his death, he left over 2000 watercolors, more than 500 oil paintings, and at least 30,000 works on paper. He bequeathed most of these pieces to the nation after his demise.

3. Albrecht Dürer

, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This German painter doubled as a watercolor artist, printmaker, and theorist. He was famed for showcasing religious scenes that reflected biblical and historical accounts. He gave his paintings a dramatic feel and an imaginative landscape backdrop.

Some of Dürer’s most appreciated works are:

• Hare (1502)
• The Large Piece of Turf (1503)
• Adam and Eve (1507)
• The Martyrdom of Ten Thousand (1508)
• Praying Hands (1508)

His engravings are also a crucial source of his popularity. They consist of Knight, Death and the Devil created in 1513, Saint Jerome in his Study in 1514, and Melencolia I in 1514. He was born in Germany on 21 May 1471. He met his demise at the age of 56 while in Germany on 6 April 1528.

4. John Singer Sargent

The iconic watercolor artist was born in Italy to American parents on January 12, 1856. He joined an Arts school in France in 1874. While in school, he took drawing classes but spent most of his time in self-study. Thus he practiced making sketches, drawings, and paintings.

Furthermore, in 1884 he made his acclaimed work, the Portrait of Madame X. It was a painting of a young French socialite. The portrait raised a lot of controversy as critics termed it eccentric and erotic. Shortly after, he left Â鶹APP for England where he continued his painting career.

Though most of his portraits were done in thick oils, his landscape watercolor paintings stood out as well. He left over 900 oil paintings and more than 2000 watercolors. While his sketches and charcoal drawings are countless.

His watercolor paintings cut across several regions like the English countryside, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. In many of his watercolors, he portrayed his friends and family against a background of brightly lit landscapes.

The climax of his watercolors came in 1909 when he exhibited eighty-six watercolors in New York City. To add on, eighty-three of the paintings were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Sargent died in London at the age of 69 years on April 14, 1925. Some of his most famous works are:

• Pozzi at Home (1881)
• The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882)
• Henry White (1883)
• Claude Monet Painting at the Edge of a Wood (1885)
• Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1887)
• The Chess Game 1906
• Muddy Alligators (1917)

5. Georgia O’Keeffe

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She is highly regarded as one of the earliest American female modernist painters. In some spheres, she is known as the “Mother of American modernism”. Her fame stems from her ability to portray nature and especially flowers and desert-inspired landscapes.

O’Keeffe was born in Wisconsin on November 15, 1887. She studied art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She became a watercolor artist in 1915.

To add on, American art dealer and photographer Alfred Stieglitz took notice of her. In 1917, he held an exhibit for her works. She moved to New York in 1918 and got married to Stieglitz in 1924. From 1929 she lived in Mexico and drew inspiration from the area’s landscapes and she also painted animal skulls.

Subsequently, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe was established in her honor. The watercolor artist died aged 98 years in New Mexico on March 6, 1986. Her famous works include:

• Red Canna paintings (1915, 1919, 1923)
• Sunrise (1916)
• Palo Duro Canyon (1916-1917)
• Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue (1931)
• Ram’s Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills (1935)
• Jimson Weed/White (1936)

6. Paul Cézanne

This French watercolor artist was a headline painter. Many of his famous works were oil paintings. But from the 1860s until he died in the 1900s his experimental works were composed of watercolors. His images expressed landscapes and still life.

Cézanne’s watercolor technique allowed the images to reveal an interplay of overlapping strokes of color. While at the same time bringing forth the boldness of color. He did this by combining different paints directly and applying them on paper rather than mixing them on a palette.     

The watercolorist was born in France on 19 January 1839. His demise occurred on 22 October 1906, when he was 67 years old while in France. His masterpieces consist of:

• A Modern Olympia (1874)
• The Bather (1885)
• The Boy in a Red Vest (1889-1890)
• The Card Players (1890–1895)
• The Basket of Apples Still Life (1895)
• The Large Bathers (1898–1905)
• Pyramid of Skulls (1901)

Discover Portrait Painters That History Will Remember.

7. John James Audubon

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He was an American ornithologist cum self-trained watercolor artist. He is recognized for his watercolor illustrations of different North American bird species.

Audubon is prominent for the book titled The Birds of America that he worked on from 1827 to 1839. This work has since remained a first-rate ornithological work and a perfect display of art.

Besides the artistic illustrations, Audubon was also able to identify at least 25 new bird species. To celebrate his efforts, the National Audubon Society is named in his honor. This non-profit environmental organization focuses on the conservation of birds and their habitats.

On top of that, there are many towns, neighborhoods, streets, and facilities throughout the US named after him. Many scientific names he came up with are still in use in the modern day. He was born in Saint-Domingue (today’s Haiti) on April 26, 1785. He passed away in New York on January 27, 1851, aged 65.

8. Thomas Moran

An English-born painter and printmaker who found a passion in expressing the American West landscapes through watercolors. He is also linked to the 19th-century Hudson River School movement in New York. This group’s work majored in portraying the Rocky Mountains landscapes.

Over and above that, his watercolor sketches and paintings from the Hayden expedition in 1871 proved the magnificence of natural features in the Yellowstone region. Thus, the paintings triggered the establishment of Yellowstone National Park in 1872.

Moran was born in England on February 12, 1837. He died in California aged 89 on August 25, 1926. His famous artworks consist:

• The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872)
• The Chasm of the Colorado (1873-74)
• Fiercely the Red Sun Descending / Burned His Way Along the Heavens (1875-76)
• The Mountain of the Holy Cross (1875)
• The Three Tetons (1881)
• Grand Canyon of Arizona (From Hermit Rim Road) 1912

9. Mary Cassatt

, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

She is a watercolor artist noted for depicting 19th-century everyday women and children. She was born in Pennsylvania on May 22, 1844. Yet she spent most of her adult life in France. So she was part of the Impressionists (19th-century art movement).

Moreover, her paintings alongside her pastels and watercolors increased her acclaim in the Impressionist movement. She died in France aged 82 years on June 14, 1926. Her famous works include:

• Little Girl in a Blue Armchair (1878)
• In the Loge (1878)
• Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge (1879)
• Lilacs in a Window (1880-83)
• Children Playing on the Beach (1884)
• The Boating Party (1893-94)
• Young Mother Sewing (1900)

10. Raoul Dufy

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He was a notable French Fauvist (a 20th-century group of artists that employed painting skills with strong use of color) painter. His paintings were characterized by open-air social event scenes.

Additionally, his colorful and decorative style was adopted for ceramics and textile designs. These designs also became popular as decorative schemes for public buildings. Most of his watercolors involved landscapes. A perfect example is his paintings of Norman landscapes.

Dufy was born in France on 3 June 1877. He died aged 75 in his country on 23 March 1953. Some of his prominent paintings are:

• Bathers (1908)
• Boats At Martigues (1908)
• Acrobats (1922)
• The Mediterranean (1923)
• Chateau and Horses (1930)
• The Mexican Musicians (1951)
• The Mexican Orchestra (1951)

11. Emil Nolde

The watercolor artist was one of the modernist painters of the early 20^th century. He was of German-Danish descent and specialized in oil paintings and watercolors. His expressive choice of colors is evident throughout his works. Golden yellow and deep red shades are the most popular in many of his images.

To boot, Nolde used most of his watercolors to present details of brooding storm scapes, fine florals, and biblical themes. He was born in Germany on 7 August 1867. Emil passed on in Germany on 13 April 1956 at the age of 88 years. His masterpieces include:

• The Last Supper (1909)
• Dance Around the Golden Calf (1910)
• Autumn Sea VII (1910)
• Sunflowers (1917,1936)
• Flower garden (marigolds) 1919
• The colored sky above the Marais (1940)

12. David Hockney

, , via Wikimedia Commons

Hockney is an English painter and watercolor artist who has contributed to the pop art movement significantly. His colorful watercolor landscapes like the Hand Eye Heart paintings are noted for vivid elaboration of the East Yorkshire region.

Another popular work by the artist is the Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) done in 1972. It was auctioned at Christie’s auction house in New York City in 2018 for $90 million or £70 million. This watercolor artist was born in England on 9 July 1937. Besides his London home, he has had intermittent residence in California since 1964. His other famous works are:

• A Bigger Splash (1967)
• Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy (1971)
• A Bigger Grand Canyon (1998)
• Bigger Trees Near Warter (2007)
• A Bigger Interior with Blue Terrace and Garden (2017)

13. Edward Hopper

He was an American realist painter who doubled as a printmaker and watercolor artist. He is well known for his oil paintings, etching, and watercolors. His paintings addressed themes of loneliness such as the 1942s Nighthawks painting. This image shows the feeling of a lonely urban city.

Hopper’s birth location was New York and his birthdate was July 22, 1882. He died in Manhattan on May 15, 1967, at the age of 84 years. His famous works are:

• Sailboats (1895)
• The Lion at Play (1896)
• The Mansard Roof (1923)
• Ranch House, Santa Fe (1925)
• Saltillo Mansion (1943)

14. John Marin

, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This American watercolor artist gained fame for watercolors representing coastal Maine and urban scenes of New York. He was born in New Jersey on December 23, 1870. He met his demise in Maine on October 1, 1953, at the age of 82 years. His notable works consist:

• Brooklyn Bridge (1910)
• Paul’s, Manhattan (1914)
• Tunk Mountains, Autumn, Maine (1945)
• Off York Island (1922)
• Woolworth Building No. 28 (1912)
• The Circus No. 1 (1952)

See the Famous Oil Painters.

15. Charles Demuth

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The American painter was a specialist in watercolors of flowers, figures, and architecture. He later incorporated oils into his works. He was born in Pennsylvania on November 8, 1883. He died in the region aged 51 years on October 23, 1935. His famous works include:

• The Jazz Singer (1916)
• The Boat Ride from Sorrento (1919)
• Wild Orchids (1920)
• Aucassin and Nicolette (1921)
• Study for Poster Portrait, Marsden Hartley (1923–1924)

These famous watercolor artists captivate us with their paintings. With color, they engage our imagination, describe our environment, and tell narratives related to life. Enjoy their paintings that are timeless and speak to generation after generation.