Homer WatsonLife & Work

“Homer Watson’s landscapes were biographical manifestos and philosophical statements, an opportunity to explore nature’s inner life, power, and meaning and to probe the delicate relationship of respect that he believed human beings should establish with the natural world. His dedication to safeguarding the environment was exceptional and far-sighted.”

– Brian Foss

Homer Watson: Life & Work is a fascinating study of a painter who defined what his art and identity meant, forty years before the Group of Seven. Author Brian Foss traces the artist from the romanticism and naturalism of Watson’s first canvases to the increasingly expressionistic imagery of his later years.

Although the fame of the Group of Seven supplanted that of Watson late in his career, he remained throughout his life a beacon of personal integrity and a relentless champion of Canadian art, artists, nature, and environmentalism. Despite his extensive international travels, Watson always returned to his home in southern Ontario, where he painted the area around Kitchener’s Grand River with what he called “faith, ignorance, and delight.”

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