Watercolor Artists

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0)

Medium Hub

Watercolor Artists

3,636 works at MoMA 8 nationalities

Leading Artists in Watercolor

  1. 582 Ellsworth Kelly American
  2. 102 Unidentified Artists
  3. 83 Franz Erhard Walther German
  4. 81 Abraham Walkowitz American
  5. 70 Diego Rivera Mexican
  6. 60 Léopold Survage French
  7. 59 Marc Chagall French
  8. 58 Lauretta Vinciarelli Italian
  9. 48 Jules Pascin American
  10. 45 Hilma af Klint Swedish

National Distribution

NationalityWorksShare
American173747.8%
German44312.2%
French2978.2%
British1223.4%
Italian1042.9%
Russian932.6%
Mexican862.4%
Argentine591.6%

Classification Sub-types

Classification Works Share
Drawing 2254 62%
Notebook 588 16.2%
Print 285 7.8%
Illustrated Book 254 7%
Architecture 168 4.6%
Photograph 32 0.9%
Design 15 0.4%
Mies van der Rohe Archive 11 0.3%

Department Distribution

  • Drawings and Prints (MET) — 4727
  • Drawings & Prints (MOMA) — 3387
  • The American Wing (MET) — 885
  • Islamic Art (MET) — 542
  • Architecture & Design (MOMA) — 204
  • Asian Art (MET) — 162
  • Robert Lehman Collection (MET) — 54
  • Photography (MOMA) — 32
  • Modern and Contemporary Art (MET) — 23
  • European Paintings (MET) — 11

Production by Decade

64
0s
1
1850s
32
1860s
8
1880s
20
1890s
63
1900s
416
1910s
307
1920s
242
1930s
271
1940s
694
1950s
351
1960s
236
1970s
314
1980s
184
1990s
411
2000s
15
2010s
7
2020s

Physical Scale Distribution

Scale bracketWorksShare
Small (< 30 cm)143741.3%
Medium (30–100 cm)190154.7%
Large (1–3 m)1313.8%
Monumental (> 3 m)80.2%

Artist Birth Cohorts

1
1800–1824
6
1825–1849
38
1850–1874
159
1875–1899
127
1900–1924
171
1925–1949
153
1950–1974
20
1975–1999

Gender of Artists Working in Watercolor

  • Male — 537
  • Female — 140

Met Cultural Context

CultureCountryMet Records
American825
Iran284
India122
India (Gujarat)70
present-day Afghanistan61
AmericanUnited States22
present-day Uzbekistan15
Japan13
British12
Turkey11

On View Now

24 Watercolor works currently installed in Met galleries

Notable Highlights

(Untitled)

Mahavihara Master · early 12th century

India, West Bengal or Bangladesh

Folio from a Qur'an Manuscript

Ahmad ibn al-Suhrawardi al-Bakri|Muhammad ibn Aibak ibn 'Abdallah · dated A.H. 707/ 1307–8 CE

Iraq

"The Elephant Clock", Folio from a Book of the Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices by al-Jazari

Badi' al-Zaman ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari|Farrukh ibn `Abd al-Latif · dated A.H. 715/1315 CE

probably Syria or Iraq

(Untitled)

Master of the Jaunpur Kalpasutra · ca. 1465

India, (Gujarat, Jaunpur)