Prior to becoming a professor in the well-known art conservation program at Buffalo State College, Judith Walsh was a paper conservator at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. There she had ample opportunity to study Winslow Homer's watercolors closely, coming to understand that these fresh, spontaneous-looking works often are the result of careful study and deliberate planning. She has published extensively on Homer and brings to the subject her intimate understanding of the artist's techniques and materials. In her lecture "Winslow Homer and the Color Theories of M. E. Chevreul" on February 21 at 6:00, Walsh looks at the artist's lifelong interest in color and shows how his experiments with color theory resulted in images in which light and atmospheric effects seem tangibly real. As she demonstrates, color theory in the hands of Homer was far from dry and scientific. Rather, the observation, manipulation, and juxtaposition of color was an integral part of his working life.

Read more about the exhibition Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light.

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Winslow Homer. North Woods Club, Adirondacks (The Interrupted Tete-a-Tete), 1892. Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection.