{{short description|American artist (1873–1947)}} {{About|the American painter|the American actress|Adele Watson (actress)}} {{Infobox artist | name = Adele Watson | image = | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1873|4|30|mf=y}} | birth_place = Toledo, Ohio | death_date = {{death date and age|1947|3|23|1873|4|30|mf=y}} | death_place = Pasadena, California | education = Art Students League of New York | field = Painting, Lithography | training = | style = Landscape, Symbolist | movement = Modernism | works = ''Untitled (Mountain Island Monk)'';<ref name="whitney.org">{{Cite web |title=Adele Watson, Untitled (Mountain Island Monk) |url=https://whitney.org/collection/works/64186 |website=Whitney Museum of American Art}}</ref> ''Untitled (Figure Floating on Lake)'';<ref>{{Cite web |title=Adele Watson, Untitled (Figure Floating on Lake) |url=https://whitney.org/collection/works/64185 |access-date=2024-12-25 |website=Whitney Museum of American Art |language=en}}</ref> Lithographs<ref>{{Cite web |title=[Search Results for "Adele Watson"] |url=https://philamuseum.org/search/collections?filters=%7B%22artist%22:%5B%22Adele%20Watson%22%5D%7D |access-date=2024-12-25 |website=Philadelphia Museum of Art Online Collection |language=en}}</ref> | patrons = | awards = | spouse = | website = | partner = }} thumb|250px|''Bryce Canyon'' c. 1930 '''Fanny Adele Watson''' (April 30, 1873 – March 23, 1947) was an American painter and lithographer. She lived and worked for much of her life in Pasadena, California.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Haskell |first=Barbara |date=2022-10-19 |title=Early Adopters ['Adele Watson'] |url=https://www.themagazineantiques.com/article/early-adopters/ |access-date=2024-12-24 |website=The Magazine Antiques |language=en-US}}</ref> Her work is best known for its spectral female figures and anthropomorphic landscapes.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":4" />
== Life and career == Watson was born on April 30, 1873, in Toledo, Ohio.<ref name="Benezit">{{cite book |url=https://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit/ |title=Benezit Dictionary of Artists |website= |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-19-977378-7 |language=en |chapter=Watson, Adele |doi=10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00194897 |chapter-url=https://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e-00194897 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Her family moved to Pasadena in 1880, after the death of her father. As a young adult, Watson studied at the Art Students League of New York before returning to California in 1917. She also traveled to Paris and became a pupil of Raphael Collin.<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Hughes |first=Edan |title=Adele Watson |url=http://www.calart.com/artists/Adele-Watson/163 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701021704/http://www.calart.com/artists/Adele-Watson/163 |archive-date=1 July 2023 |access-date=30 June 2023 |website=CalART.com}}</ref>
Throughout her life, Watson was interested in the spiritual dimension of nature and the beauty of the natural world,<ref name=":3" /> a subject that also greatly interested the poet and artist Kahlil Gibran, with whom she became friends.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Fort |first=Ilene Susan |title=Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890–1945 |publisher=University of California Press |year=1995 |isbn=9780520202030 |editor-last=Trenton |editor-first=Patricia |edition=1st |pages=75–106 |chapter=The Adventuresome, the Eccentrics, and the Dreamers: Women Modernists of Southern California}}</ref> Gibran drew a portrait of her in graphite in 1926.<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Giban, Kahlil {{!}} Portrait of Adele Watson |url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2019/fine-books-and-manuscripts-online/gibran-kahlil-portrait-of-adele-watson |access-date=2024-12-24 |website=Sotheby's |language=en}}</ref>
Watson's first public exhibition was in 1913.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=13 February 1915 |title=Arts and Artists |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25588527 |journal=American Art News |volume=13 |issue=19 |pages=7 |issn=1944-0227 |jstor=25588527 |quote=Like her pictures shown at the Museum at her first public exhibition two years ago... |jstor-access=free}}</ref> Her first New York solo exhibition was held in 1916 at the Folsom Galleries<ref>{{Cite journal |date=18 November 1916 |title=Miss Watson's Pastorals |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25588974 |journal=American Art News |volume=15 |issue=9 |pages=3 |issn=1944-0227 |jstor=25588974 |quote=Adele Watson, who has a poetic tendency and some grace of composition, is displaying, at the Folsom Galleries... |jstor-access=free}}</ref> and was reviewed as having "joy, freedom, vitality and abounding sense of rhythm."<ref>{{Cite news |date=7 January 1917 |title=Pasadena Painter Given Plaudits: Adele Watson's Landscapes Impress New York; Brooklyn 'Eagle' Comments on Rhythmic Beauty Expressed on Canvas Shown at Her First Metropolitan Exhibition – Varying Ideals Contrasted |work=Los Angeles Times |pages=III 4}}</ref> She exhibited with and was a member of the American Artists Professional League, the Pen and Brush Club,<ref>{{Cite journal |date=7 February 1920 |title=Pen and Brush Club, Show |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25589580 |journal=American Art News |volume=18 |issue=16 |pages=3 |issn=1944-0227 |jstor=25589580 |jstor-access=free}}</ref> and the Society of Independent Artists; she also exhibited work at the National Academy of Design, among other places.<ref name="AskArt">{{cite web |title=Adele (Fanny) Watson |url=https://www.askart.com/artist_keywords/Adele_Fanny_Watson/100292/Adele_Fanny_Watson.aspx |website=AskArt |accessdate=29 July 2020}}</ref><ref name=":7" />
She died in Pasadena on March 23, 1947.<ref>{{Cite news |date=24 March 1947 |title=Adele Watson, Painter, Dies |work=Los Angeles Times |page=5 |issn=0458-3035 |quote=Miss Adele Watson, noted painter and daughter of early Southern California family, died yesterday at Huntington Memorial Hospital, Pasadena, after a brief illness.}}</ref>
== Work and legacy ==
=== Art and influences === Taking inspiration from some of Arthur B. Davies's quasi-symbolist paintings (e.g., ''A Measure of Dreams''), Watson's early work is frequently characterized by otherworldly nude female figures set in natural landscapes.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5" /> Beginning around the 1930s, her later paintings and lithographs began to blend landscape and the human form together, so that anthropomorphic figures seem to emerge from dreamlike terrain.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Women in Zion – Artists |url=https://www.nps.gov/zion/learn/historyculture/women-in-zion.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407161342/https://www.nps.gov/zion/learn/historyculture/women-in-zion.htm |archive-date=7 April 2023 |access-date=30 June 2023 |website=Zion National Park |publisher=U.S. National Park Service |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":5" /> This shift in Watson's work occurred predominantly in response to her experience of the landscapes of Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":2" /> She made several similar coastal scenes as well,<ref name=":2" /><ref name="whitney.org">{{Cite web |title=Adele Watson, Untitled (Mountain Island Monk) |url=https://whitney.org/collection/works/64186 |website=Whitney Museum of American Art}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Point Lobos, California |url=https://www.philamuseum.org/collection/object/52657 |access-date=2024-12-24 |website=philamuseum.org |language=en}}</ref> some of which depict the coast of Maine.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |last=Stone |first=Kathleen |date=2024-12-23 |title=Visual Arts Review: 'Remember the Ladies' – A Balmy Era for Women Artists in New England |url=https://artsfuse.org/231336/visual-arts-review-remember-the-ladies-a-balmy-era-for-women-artists-in-new-england/ |access-date=2024-12-24 |website=The Arts Fuse |language=en-US}}</ref>
=== Critical reception === Contemporaneous reviews of Watson's art were often positive. Reviewing an exhibition of Watson's work in 1918, an article in American Art News describes "unworldly beings" in her paintings that imbue them with a "spiritual impulse;" the article goes on to praise Watson's "dramatic, epic and pageant sense for conveying her thoughts through her work."<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last= |first= |date=16 February 1918 |title=Paintings by Adele Watson |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25589232 |journal=American Art News |volume=16 |issue=19 |page=3 |issn=1944-0227 |jstor=25589232 |jstor-access=free}}</ref> A 1924 article in ''The Art News'' describes a San Diego exhibition of "sixteen canvases of mystical subjects," which it characterizes as "very low tone and beautiful in color."<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |date=29 March 1924 |title=San Diego |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25591387 |journal=The Art News |volume=22 |issue=25 |page=11 |issn=0004-3273 |jstor=25591387}}</ref>
Arthur Millier, writing for the Los Angeles Times in 1933 about Watson's exhibit of paintings and painted screens, suggests that "Miss Watson sees landscape in terms of the soul of man."<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Miller |first=Arthur |date=9 April 1933 |title=Reviews of Local Music and Art: Woman Painter's Vision Lends Wings to Landscape Adele Watson Peoples Earth With Poetic Beings; Pasadena Academy Sponsors Large Show; Other Exhibits |page=A6 |work=Los Angeles Times}}</ref> Millier notes that "this is her first Los Angeles showing of her works which have gained favor in the East."<ref name=":0" />
=== Posthumous exhibitions and collections === In 1953, the Pasadena Art Institute held a retrospective of Watson's work;<ref name="Annex Galleries">{{cite web |title=Fanny Adele Watson Biography |url=https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/2491/Watson/Fanny |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230515025007/https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/2491/Watson/Fanny |archive-date=15 May 2023 |accessdate=29 July 2020 |website=Annex Galleries Fine Prints}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=1 February 1953 |title=In the Galleries: Sun Dominates Mood of Crown's Canvases |page=D8 |work=Los Angeles Times |quote=The [Pasadena Art Institute] also devotes considerable space to a retrospective exhibition of the paintings, drawings and prints of Adele Watson...}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=1953 |title=Paintings and Drawings by Adele Watson |url=https://new.nortonsimon.org/exhibitions/1950-1959/paintings-and-drawings-by-adele-watson-/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230612024817/https://new.nortonsimon.org/exhibitions/1950-1959/paintings-and-drawings-by-adele-watson-/ |archive-date=12 June 2023 |access-date=11 June 2023 |website=Norton Simon Museum |language=en-US}}</ref> and again, in 1963, the Pasadena Art Institute held a memorial exhibition of her work.<ref>{{Cite news |date=24 February 1963 |title=Complete Guide to Southland Entertainment and Culture – Art – Continuing Exhibits |page=B11 |work=Los Angeles Times}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=1963 |title=Adele Watson Memorial |url=https://www.nortonsimon.org/exhibitions/1960-1969/adele-watson-memorial-/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220519045536/https://www.nortonsimon.org/exhibitions/1960-1969/adele-watson-memorial-/ |archive-date=19 May 2022 |access-date=11 June 2023 |website=Norton Simon Museum |language=en-US}}</ref> Some of Watson's lithographs were included in a 2021 show at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art titled ''Remember the Ladies: Women Painters in Ogunquit, 1900–1950.''<ref name=":6" /> Watson's work was also included in the 2022–2023 exhibit, ''At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism'', at the Whitney Museum of American Art,<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Gural |first=Natasha |date=16 August 2022 |title=Whitney Museum Re-Informs Our Modernist Gaze, Celebrating Artists Who Have Been Under-Represented In Art History Alongside Leading Masters |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/natashagural/2022/08/16/whitney-museum-re-informs-our-modernist-gaze-displaying-artists-who-have-been-under-represented-in-art-history-alongside-leading-masters/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230611040529/https://www.forbes.com/sites/natashagural/2022/08/16/whitney-museum-re-informs-our-modernist-gaze-displaying-artists-who-have-been-under-represented-in-art-history-alongside-leading-masters/?sh=51a18e8b4ea6 |archive-date=11 June 2023 |access-date=10 June 2023 |website=Forbes |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2022 |title=At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism |url=https://whitney.org/exhibitions/dawn-of-a-new-age |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230315131549/https://whitney.org/exhibitions/dawn-of-a-new-age |archive-date=15 March 2023 |access-date=10 June 2023 |website=Whitney Museum of American Art |language=en}}</ref> which holds two of her paintings in its permanent collection.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Adele Watson |url=https://whitney.org/artists/20108 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401070438/https://whitney.org/artists/20108 |archive-date=1 April 2023 |access-date=10 June 2023 |website=Whitney Museum of American Art |language=en}}</ref> Her work is also held in the collections of the Orange County Museum of Art<ref name="AskArt" /> and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Search: Adele Watson |url=https://philamuseum.org/search/collections?filters=%7B%22artist%22%3A%5B%22Adele%20Watson%22%5D%7D |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230612025237/https://philamuseum.org/search/collections?filters=%7B%22artist%22%3A%5B%22Adele%20Watson%22%5D%7D |archive-date=12 June 2023 |access-date=11 June 2023 |website=Philadelphia Museum of Art |language=en}}</ref>
== Note == There was another Adele Watson, who was a contemporary actress: Adele Watson (1890–1933) from Minnesota starred in over 20 films in the 1920s–1930s.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Adele Watson (1890–1933) |url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0914486/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701205451/https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0914486/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 |archive-date=1 July 2023 |access-date=1 July 2023 |website=IMDb |language=en-US}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * {{Commons category-inline|Fanny Adele Watson}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Adele}} Category:1873 births Category:1947 deaths Category:19th-century American women artists Category:20th-century American women artists Category:20th-century American women painters Category:20th-century American painters Category:20th-century American lithographers Category:American women artists Category:Artists from California Category:Artists from Pasadena, California Category:Artists from Toledo, Ohio Category:Art Students League of New York alumni Category:American landscape painters Category:American Symbolist painters Category:American women printmakers