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"Watercolor is not elusive. It is the architecture beneath the sea that cries to be let out, to be discovered. And when it rings right, it sounds very much like a bell tolling deeply in the sea from some strange sunken chapel."
Letter from the artist, May 13, 1983 Archives of American Art, Paul Jenkins Papers
Paul Jenkins has maintained
a deep commitment to watercolor from his earliest beginnings,
and his watercolors are found in museum
collections throughout the United States, Europe and Japan.
In 1956,
he participated in the Museum of Modern Art exhibition in New York, Recent Drawings USA. In 1957, his
work was included in the seminal exhibition "41 American Watercolorists of Today, organized
by the International Program of the Museum of Modern Art in New York
and chosen by Dorothy Miller, curator of the collection, with a catalogue
and preface
by Frank O'Hara. Works in watercolor from 1958 were
acquired by Joseph Hirshhorn and are presently in the collection of the
Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
In 1989, the Musées de Nice exhibited
watercolors in conjunction with the artist's dance-drama performed at
the Paris Opera
[Shaman to
the
Prism
Seen, 1988], and these works form an integral
part of the exhibition, Water and Color. Exhibitions
include—
1957
Abstract Watercolors by Fourteen Americans, traveling
exhibition shown in London, Nice and other cities in
Europe by
the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
1959
20th Biennial Watercolor Exhibition, The Brooklyn Museum of Art.
1972
The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. initiated a 2-year
solo traveling exhibition of watercolors.
1984
Homer, Sargent and the American Watercolor Tradition, The Brooklyn
Museum of Art, Brooklyn.
1994
Water and Color, traveling exhibition [in France] of watercolors
from the most recent decade, organized by PACA. 2000—The
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown.
2000-2001
Viaggio in Italia, Basilica Palladiana, Vicenza.
2006
Water and Color, The Arkansas Arts Center.
2010-2011
The Color of Light. Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California. Fifty watercolors including major scale and works originally created for the Paris Opera, together with selected paintings on canvas.
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