The most eye-catching piece in John Newcomb’s art exhibition, Travels with John, may be the three-foot-by-nine-foot triptych Long Way Home, but the biggest statement is his collection of 50 watercolors he created while traveling the world.
The exhibition opens on Friday, Aug. 21, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. and the public is invited. The show features framed and unframed watercolor paintings from all over the world and includes scenes from Mexico, Argentina, Australia, India, Japan, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Africa, Greece, Russia, and more. The paintings were created while the artist visited each of the many countries represented in the last 25 years. Additionally, Newcomb will be exhibiting eight large-scale acrylics, including the triptych.
He recently said about his work, “I travel a lot and very early I found I was taking notes on hotel stationery for composition and color for scenes that interested me. It was a short step to making watercolor paintings of the scenes.
“I travel with a compact set of tools: a watercolor block from Arches and a folding set of colors made by Pelican, a rag, and a pencil. I began using spare time in the journey to do the watercolor paintings in the hotels in which my wife and I stayed. The watercolors themselves are not conventional. I love color and, as in my large acrylic works, I pile on paint so that the colors snap. None of the works are ‘timid’ or ‘delicate.’”
Born in 1937 in Topeka, Kansas, Newcomb graduated from Kansas University and then was awarded a Rotary Fellowship to study at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He spent the next 30 years as a magazine art director for The New York Times and The Medical Economics Company. Newcomb has exhibited previously at Wilton Library in October 2011 with a one-man show of more than 100 paintings. His paintings are now in private collections in most parts of the country. He lives and has his studio in Norwalk.
All of the paintings are available for purchase with a portion of the proceeds benefiting Wilton Library. The exhibition runs through Sunday, Sept. 27.
Information: wiltonlibrary.org or call 203-762-3950, ext. 213.