“Color is the most immediate and powerful form of visual communication there is. It is able to by-pass logic and speak directly to our emotions.” – Barbara Ernst Prey

Blue Water Fine Arts is proud to announce Re/Viewing the American Landscape, the most recent works of internationally celebrated artist Barbara Ernst Prey, July 20-September 7. This monumental exhibition explores the influences of memory, Color Field painters, and art history on the large-scale watercolor landscapes of Barbara Ernst Prey. Re/Viewing the American Landscape considers Prey’s distinct and evocative use of color as a 21st century female artist which is both essential to, and occasionally at odds with, her subjects as she explores the depth of the American landscape. Her belief that color is the most powerful way to communicate drove Prey to develop groundbreaking, intricate layering techniques, built up through dozens of thin washes on paper, often incorporating parts of her surrounds –water, soil, crushed shells - Prey’s pieces defiantly Re/View the American Landscape. While the work is predominantly American based in subject matter, the aura Prey produces throughout her work can be appreciated on a global scale. The exhibit proves Prey’s place as a significant American artist furthering the genre of American driven landscapes.

Prey was appointed by the President of the United States to the National Council on the Arts, the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Arts. Members are chosen for their established record of distinguished service and achievement in the arts. Previous members include noted artists Leonard Bernstein, John Steinbeck, Richard Diebenkorn and Isaac Stern. Her painting Lineleader, is currently on exhibit at the National Endowment for the Arts in the office of the Chairman. With work in the White House’s permanent collection, her appointment to the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body to the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a long list of important private, public, national and international collections, her place as a significant American artist is secure.

Re/Viewing the American Landscape features works that explore natural instances in which color creates a jarring balance. This is seen in her new piece Quadricentennial Nocturne, which cuts across the color wheel, layering rich developed blues directly above saturated yellows and oranges and pointing us back to these spectacular color combinations from nature. Prey’s technique is especially apparent in Fibonacci’s Workshop in which each wash has subtly changed the nature of the piece until the depth and balance are achieved, making the painting as much a reflection of the space changing over time and the artist’s memory changing over time. Her brushwork and layering of color positively thrives within this piece and truly proves why the Heckscher Museum Director Michael Schantz said, “Barbara Ernst Prey [is] one of America’s most gifted watercolorists...Barbara’s flawless technique ranks her among the most important artists who ever painted in the medium.” Re/Viewing the American Landscape at Blue Water Fine Arts brings together some of Barbara’s most powerful works both conceptually and aesthetically. Her reflections on the contemporary American landscape will be recognized on the time line of art history.

Sarah Cash, curator of the National Gallery of Art, writes, “Among the foremost artists at work in the United States today, Barbara Ernst Prey has painted powerful, vibrant views of her surroundings for nearly forty years. The artist continues to take the watercolor medium, which has an august role in the history of American art, to innovative places. The New York Times writes, “Prey is going where artists Rauschenberg and Warhol have gone before.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Prey’s paintings are included in some of the most important public and private collections around the world including The White House, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Brooklyn Museum, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Farnsworth Art Museum, Williams College Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art

Dartmouth College, The Taiwan Museum of Art, New York Historical Society, the Henry Luce Foundation, Bush Presidential Library and Center and The Reader’s Digest Collection. Her work is owned by private collectors and celebrities including President and Mrs. George W. Bush, Nobel Laureate Dr. and Mrs. James Watson, Ambassador and Mrs. Craig Stapleton, Prince and Princess Johannes Lobkowicz, Orlando Bloom and Tom Hanks. As a spokesperson for American Art, she was invited to lecture at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. for the Winslow Homer exhibit, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art for the John Singer Sargent exhibit, at the Thyssen- Bornemisza Museum in Madrid on American Art and at Dartmouth College. She is an art blogger for The Huffington Post. She is Adjunct Faculty at Williams College.

Prey was recently honored when NASA commissioned her to paint four paintings for their collection. The x-43, the fastest aircraft in the world, was included in the Smithsonian Institution’s Traveling Museum Exhibit NASA|ART: 50 Years at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. NASA invited her to be the artist spokesperson for the exhibit and she was featured on The CBS Evening News. Her other NASA commissions include: Columbia Tribute, to commemorate the anniversary of the Columbia tragedy; the International Space Station, which is on exhibit with her painting Columbia Tribute at the Kennedy Space Center; and Shuttle Discovery: Return to Flight. Prey joins an elite group of American artists who have been invited by NASA to document the history of space exploration including Norman Rockwell and Robert Rauschenberg.

Prey is an artistic ambassador for the United States, chosen to participate since 2004 in the United States Arts in Embassies Program. At the U.S. Embassy in Paris she was the only living American painter exhibited with prominent American masters Homer, Ryder and Sargent. The U.S. Ambassador to Spain requested a special exhibit of her paintings for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. Her artwork is on exhibit in many U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide including: Hong Kong, Prague, Seoul, Baghdad, Abu Dhabi, Bogotá, Mexico City, Athens, Cairo and Rangoon. Prey was honored with the Senate’s “Women of Distinction Award”, a tribute to outstanding New York women. She joins previous honorees Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Prey graduated from Williams College where she studied with Lane Faison and has a masters degree from Harvard University where she was able to continue her art history studies. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a Henry Luce Foundation grant for her work which enabled her to travel, study and exhibit extensively in Europe and Asia which continues to influence her work.

Prey’s artwork has been featured and discussed in numerous books, publications, radio and television programs including The CBS Evening News, The New Yorker, The New York Times, BBC Worldwide, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Sun, Newsday, The Boston Globe, CBS Sunday Morning, Larry King Live, PBS, NPR, Paula Zahn Now, CNN News Sunday, AP and Reuters Newswire, The New York Post, The Daily News, The International Art Newspaper, Harvard Magazine, Artforum, ArtNews, Forbes and NBC’s Extra.

Opening Reception: Monday, August 3 from 6 - 8 PM


Gallery Hours: 10am - 5pm, and by appointment


Press Contact: Chelsea Church (516) 316-7477, (207) 372-8087, inquiries@bluewaterfinearts.com

Artist’s Website: www.BarbaraPrey.com

Follow Us on Facebook facebook.com/Barbara-Ernst-Prey and Twitter @barbaraprey.

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