"I might be able to tell what I know about composition or color, but in more senses than one it would not do the student much good. If, however, I can teach him how to do the mechanical part of producing a watercolor, such as tinting a paper, blending colors, or performing the various other operations or tricks of the trade -- then if he has anything to express, his hand will be ready. In other words, I shall try to give him the spelling and grammar -- he must have the ideas." -- Eliot O'Hara
During his lifetime, Eliot O'Hara (1890-1969) was one of America's most widely respected watercolorists and teachers. In addition to an extensive exhibition record, O'Hara wrote eight books, produced more than twenty films on watercolor technique, and taught classes all over the country. From 1930-1947, he ran the successful O'Hara Watercolor School at Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport, Maine, the first such school in the United States. (The school burned down in the great 1947 fire that destroyed over 200,000 acres in Maine, and was never reopened).
O'Hara was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, where his father owned a successful manufacturing company. With the sudden death of his father in 1912, the twenty-two year old O'Hara took control of the business, assuming responsibility for his mother and three younger siblings. In the early 1920s, O'Hara began to paint as a form of relaxation. Soon, however, he spent more and more time developing his painting skills. When he married in 1924, he and his wife honeymooned for several months in Europe where he produced nearly three hundred paintings. That same year, some of those European-inspired watercolors were accepted into the Philadelphia Watercolor Club Annual Exhibition. The following year, his first solo exhibition in Boston sold out. By 1927, O'Hara was a successful artist and could devote all his time to painting. He would go on to receive many honors during his long career, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a life membership in the American Watercolor Society, and was one of the first watercolorists elected to the National Academy of Design.
Painting on-site, O'Hara worked without an easel, sitting or kneeling directly over his watercolor paper (usually 15 x 22 inches), with his paints and brushes to one side. With almost no formal training, O'Hara taught himself to paint and created his own personal style. Hoping to provide other beginning watercolor students with the painting techniques that he was forced to develop on his own, O'Hara wrote his first book on the subject in 1932. "Making Watercolors Behave" was the first of eight how-to-books to follow. In 1936, he made his first watercolor demonstration film, eventually producing twenty-four color films commissioned by the Encyclopedia Britannica Company.
O'Hara's watercolors are characterized by solid compositions painted with traditional washes, and economic brushstrokes that convey details with a startling simplicity. Said to complete most paintings in little more than an hour, O'Hara was fond of saying -- "It's the last stroke that kills the picture." An avid traveler who painted all over the world (for sixteen years he painted each summer in Maine), O'Hara was a master at conveying the distinctive color and light that characterized each locale he visited.
Among the more than sixty public collections that include O'Hara's work are -- the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Fine Art Boston, the National Academy of Design, the National Museum of American Art, the Toledo Art Museum, the Worcester Art Museum, and the Ogunquit Museum of American Art.
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