Michele & Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts

The D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts began collecting watercolor paintings and works on paper in the early 1930s when it first opened to the public. Because watercolors are subject to fading when exposed to light for extended periods, the paintings in the exhibition are shown only rarely.

Winslow Homer’s important painting The New Novel is among the most well-known works in the museum’s collection. Long respected for his oil paintings, Homer’s interest in watercolor emerged in the early 1870s. The painting was shown by the artist in the 1877 annual exhibition of the American Watercolor Society and marked the beginning of his mature style. His early watercolors depict America’s rural life as well as the seaside. The New Novel documents the artist’s preoccupation with a young woman thought to have been linked to an unrequited love affair……………… read more from D’Amour Museum of Fine Art