Organized by the Carter, Drawn to Nature features artworks by 25 artists and celebrates a range of historical, modernist and contemporary works on paper in the museum’s collection, including drawings, watercolors and prints. This exhibition highlights the breadth of the Carter’s collection and offers the rare chance to spotlight a variety of artworks that have never been on view before, including works on paper by John Frederick Kensett, Lucia Bliss and James Prosek. Drawn to Nature also shines light on the vital role of women artists in depicting nature throughout the history of American art, featuring artworks by Bliss, Natasha Bowdoin, Fidelia Bridges and Sandy Rodriguez.
John James Audubon (1785-1851), Hooping [sic] Crane, 1834. Aquatint and engraving with applied watercolor. Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, 1965.163.
The English philosopher and critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) promoted the idea of “truth to nature” and advised artists to practice direct observation in order to depict the natural world as accurately as possible without romanticizing it.
Among the American painters who followed Ruskin’s principle was Bridges (1834-1923), who painted the watercolor Pink Cyclamen, circa 1875. She was one of the few 19th-century American women to have a successful career as an artist and was a founding member of the American Watercolor Society. She was an advocate for women having their own careers and broadened flower painting from being a pursuit of female amateurs to a professional career.
Fidelia Bridges (1834-1923), Pink Cyclamen, ca. 1875. Transparent and opaque watercolor heightened with gum glaze and graphite on paper. Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, 1982.49.
Pink Cyclamen, is in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum of Art in Fort Worth, Texas, which has drawn from its collection to create the exhibition Drawn to Nature. It includes the artwork of 25 artists from the 19th to the 21st century and continues through September 29.
The museum notes, “This exhibition highlights American artists’ depictions of nature in all of its intricate complexities, from detailed investigations of wildlife by Victorian artists to contemporary botanical abstraction inspired by up-close observation. It highlights the breadth of the Carter’s collection and offers the rare chance to spotlight a variety of artworks that have never been on view before.”
Lucia Bliss (1823-1912), Spring Bouquet, 1880s. Transparent and opaque watercolor over graphite on paper. Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Gift of Ruth Carter Stevenson, 2008.24.
Among the contemporary artists is the naturalist and writer Prosek who published his first book, Trout: An Illustrated History, when he was 19. His watercolor, Brook Trout, 2021, is in the exhibition. He explains that painting brook trout, his favorite fish since he was a young boy, has made him a better observer.
Henry Roderick Newman (1843–1917), Anemones, 1876. Watercolor heightened with gum glaze over graphite on paper. Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Purchase with funds provided by Ruth Carter Stevenson, 1985.28.
Rodriguez was a librarian at the Getty Museum where she researched and taught about the manufacture and use of color. During her 2020 to 2021 Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency, she collected botanical specimens to make the inks and watercolors she uses in her work. The materials she uses are based on her study of Indigenous knowledge systems. JTree Studies, 2021, is an accordion-style sketchbook with hand-processed watercolor on amate paper, handmade from tree bark for millennia.
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