Art Review: Fogg Museum Watercolor Show Glorious

A few weeks ago, I was in Boston to visit a donor — I’m always raising money for a righteous cause — and had a free slot, so I went to the Fogg, the art museum at Harvard. I hadn’t been there since the Covid mass hysteria, hallucination, and hypnosis. The Fogg, on instructions from its masters at Harvard, stayed shut to the public as long as it possibly could, and longer than almost every art museum in the country.

I missed the Fogg. It’s a unique, enriching experience. I have visited a hundred times over the years and still find its collection staggering and always a treat. It’s one of the country’s great museums. Its collection of American watercolors is the world’s best. These are rarely exhibited because of light sensitivity, so as soon as I learned about Into the Light: American Watercolors, 1880–1990, I planned a good long time to see it. Winslow Homer’s Schooner at Sunset, from 1880, is reason enough go to Cambridge. It’s more than electrifying. It’s hot, raw lightning.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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A few weeks ago, I was in Boston to visit a donor — I’m always raising money for a righteous cause — and had a free slot, so I went to the Fogg, the art museum at Harvard. I hadn’t been there since the Covid mass hysteria, hallucination, and hypnosis. The Fogg, on instructions from its masters at Harvard, stayed shut to the public as long as it possibly could, and longer than almost every art museum in the country.

I missed the Fogg. It’s a unique, enriching experience. I have visited a hundred times over the years and still find its collection staggering and always a treat. It’s one of the country’s great museums. Its collection of American watercolors is the world’s best. These are rarely exhibited because of light sensitivity, so as soon as I learned about Into the Light: American Watercolors, 1880–1990, I planned a good long time to see it. Winslow Homer’s Schooner at Sunset, from 1880, is reason enough go to Cambridge. It’s more than electrifying. It’s hot, raw lightning.