Dazzled from port Clyde to Paris

ALMOST 40 VIVID watercolors by Barbara Ernst Prey, whose poignant paintings--many of seascapes and others of the fisherman's off-season workshop--will go on display this summer in a much-anticipated exhibition that should prove to be one of the highlights of the current season, as Prey is considered to be among the foremost landscape painters of the 21st century active in the U.S. today. Her paintings are in the collections of major museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, and The Smithsoniau American Art Museum.

Prey's development as an artist is characterized by intense and exacting study of subject, color, and light, as well as a rich accumulation of life experiences. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., invited her to lecture on "The Watercolors of Winslow Homer," testifying to the central position Prey's work plays in the continuing history of American art. The President and First Lady invited Prey to paint the official White House Christmas card and her artwork currently is on display in the White House and included in its permanent collection.

"It is a powerful sense of human presence--despite the absence of the figure--infused with a compelling aura of place and history that, above all, characterizes this group of Prey's exquisitely conceived and rendered watercolors," exudes Sarah Cash, curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., who will extend those duties to this exhibition when it travels abroad later this year.

"In Prey's paintings," she continues, "our imaginations are enticed not only by the scenes themselves, but by the exquisitely wrought details that animate the compositions. These intricately composed works also testify to her predilection for strong color and her interest in probing beneath exterior appearances. Both 'Sanctum II' and 'Finish Coat' provide glimpses into these bright and congenial havens for the off-season fishing work of trap repair, buoy painting, and line cleaning, as well as socializing. In 'Finish Coat,' tiers upon tiers of painstakingly drawn and painted buoys-still lives, as the artist notes--hang to dry at last light. In 'Sanctum II,' Prey is fascinated with the artistic license and humor of the lobsterman who marks not only his buoys but his surroundings with his specific buoy colors. Together, these elements comprise a perfect case study of Prey's mastery of the unforgiving medium of watercolor.

"Completely different, but just as compelling, is the effect in the powerful 'Dreamcatchers,' where the peacefulness of the image is eclipsed by the rigors and complexities of the watercolor medium. The viewer is simultaneously challenged to question existing assumptions about the appearance of watercolor; these are, after all, more paintings than works on paper in their edge-to-edge color and in their many layers of wash, allowing alternating passages of translucency and opacity."

Prey was honored by the New York State Senate with the "Women of Distinction Award," joining previous honorees Susan B. Anthony and Eleanor Roosevelt. Moreover, she is an international ambassador for America with paintings on exhibit in U.S. Embassies abroad through the United States Arts in Embassies Program. Her monumental "God and Country" is on view in the entryway of the U.S. Embassy in Paris. She is the only living American painter included in the exhibit with such American masters as Homer, John Singer Sargant, and Edward Hopper. Her work also is on display at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. Prey was invited by both foreign ambassadors to lecture about her work to the cultural leaders of France and Spain for the opening of their art collections.

Back in the U.S., meanwhile, Prey is part of an elite group of American artists who have been invited by NASA to document space history, a group that includes Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol. NASA commissioned Prey to execute four paintings for its collection: "The Shuttle Discovery: Return to Flight," which will go on a national tour in 2008; "The Columbia Tribute," to commemorate the anniversary of the Columbia tragedy, which was unveiled at a National Air and Space Museum dinner where a print was given to all of the astronauts' families; the "International Space Station," which is exhibited at the Kennedy Space Center; and the "x-43," the fastest aircraft in the world.

"Future generations will realize that we have not only the scientists and engineers capable of shaping the destiny of our age but artists worthy to keep them company," notes H. Lester Cooke, former National Gallery of Art curator who guided the NASA Arts Program.

"From Port Clyde to Paris" is on view July 28-Aug. 13 at Blue Water Fine Arts, Port Clyde, Maine. It then travels overseas, where it can be seen at France's Mona Bismarck Foundation Paris Cultural Center, Oct. 18-Jan. 19, 2008.

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