Dodge Macknight’s Watercolors

During the early twentieth century, Boston was an important center for watercolor painting in the United States. And when we think about the watercolor tradition there, names such as Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Frank Benson immediately come to mind. All were masters of this difficult and challenging medium, which was especially popular among artists who loved to work outdoors. This was certainly the case with Dodge Macknight (1860-1950), who is considered by many––including myself––to be the most avant-garde of the Boston watercolorists because of his use of a daring palette. Indeed, of all the Boston watercolorists I’ve done research on at Spanierman Gallery, Macknight has proven to be one of the most interesting to write about, because of the diversity of their subject matter and most importantly, because they are truly dazzling in their coloration. I’m certainly not the only admirer of his work: during his day, Macknight’s aquarelles were acquired by such discerning collectors as Isabella Stewart Gardner (who created a special “Macknight Room” at Fenway Court) and Sarah Choate Sears. Their patronage no doubt inspired other art aficionados to collect his paintings as well––to the extent that by the early 1920s, sales from Macknight’s watercolor shows never dropped below the $10,000 mark!

Macknight began his career as a theatrical and sign painter, after which he studied with the academic painter Fernand Cormon in Paris during the mid-1880s. However, his formal training appears to have had little effect on his art. Instead, his sojourn in the French capital brought him into contact with Vincent van Gogh, a fellow student who shared his interest in modern strategies of color and light. In fact, Macknight’s aesthetic outlook was so like his own that at one point Van Gogh invited him to join him and Paul Gauguin at Arles, declaring that his American friend “paints better than most Yankees do.”

A peripatetic artist, Macknight created watercolors inspired by his travels throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Mexico, the Grand Canyon and his native New England. In the current exhibition, Five American Watercolorists, Macknight’s fluent technique is readily apparent but it’s his use of color that really makes him stand out, especially the way he manipulated it to create light. Take, for example, Jamaica Landscape: Tropical Island (above), with its deep electric purple––one of Macknight’s favorite colors and one that prompted Boston’s conservative critics (who were more attuned to the harmonious chromatic combinations of the impressionists) to dub his works “Macknightamares.” Macknight’s signature purple can also be seen in Haying in the Salt Marshes (shown at right), from 1924, but the dominant tones––the ones that evoke the moist, heat-laden atmosphere, are vivid oranges and yellows. In walking around the exhibit today, I was reminded of a review I found in the February 1, 1930, issue of Art Digest, in which a New York critic is quoted as proclaiming “If [Macknight] has ever seen anything drab and dismal in Morocco, Spain, Cape Cod, Jamaica or New Hampshire . . . he has not set anything of the kind on paper.”

Carol Lowrey