The Harvard University Art Museums will present “American Watercolors and Pastels, 1875-1950,” at the Fogg Art Museum April 8 to June 25. The exhibition features 52 watercolors and pastels primarily drawn from the extensive holdings of the Fogg, as well as significant works lent by friends of the Art Museums.

This will be the first showing of these treasures of American art since 1936, when the Fogg presented “American Watercolors from the Museum’s Collection.” Because of the works’ light sensitivity, they are rarely publicly displayed. The exhibition focuses on works created during what scholars consider the medium’s “golden age” of experimentation and development.

The period from 1875 to 1950 saw the status of the watercolor shift dramatically. Works on paper until that time usually served only as studies or preparatory works for finished oil paintings, but beginning in the late Nineteenth Century, drawings and watercolors were exhibited more regularly in their own right.

Artists such as Winslow Homer began painting complete scenes in watercolor and exhibiting them as finished works in commercial galleries. Homer pushed the medium formally, scratching into the surface of the paper to create highlights and experimenting with washes, opaque applications of paint. John Singer Sargent also helped to establish the merits of the medium, preferring watercolor for its portability, and using it on his travels to make informal sketches that stood on their own and did not necessarily serve preparatory ends.

The exhibition was organized by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr, curator of American Art, and Virginia Anderson, assistant curator of American Art. “The exhibition came out of our work on a comprehensive collections catalog of American painting, watercolor, pastel and stained glass at the Harvard University Art Museums,” said Stebbins. “As we compiled the list of objects for that catalog project, it became clear that the Fogg’s collection from this period and in these media was particularly strong and deserving of an exhibition.”

Edward Hopper (1882-1967), “Highland Light,” 1930, watercolor over graphite on rough white wove paper, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. Louise E. Bettens Fund. -David Mathews photo ©President and Fellows of Harvard College

Anderson adds, “This is an opportunity to present to thepublic a wonderful selection of important American works, themajority of which are unpublished. Through this exhibition, we canbring these works to light so that they can receive critical andscholarly attention.”

The Fogg’s holdings of Nineteenth Century American watercolors and pastels were greatly enhanced with the bequest of the Winthrop Collection in 1943. Grenville L. Winthrop is best remembered for his magnificent collection of Asian art and for his superb holdings of French and British paintings and drawings, but he also collected extensively the work of a quartet of American masters of the late Nineteenth Century: Homer, LaFarge, Whistler and Sargent. Winthrop’s gift of 136 American drawings, watercolors and pastels, along with 57 paintings and 35 sculptures, makes him Harvard’s most important donor in this field to date.

“Our collection of American watercolors and pastels is extraordinary, and it’s a pleasure for us to bring them to a new generation of students, scholars, and the public,” said Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. “I am also particularly grateful to the private collectors who generously lent us some of their most treasured objects, which allow us to present this rich view of American art.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by a brochure with 12 color reproductions, a checklist and a short essay by curator Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr.

The museums are at 32 Quincy Street. For information, www.artmuseums.harvard.edu or 617-495-9400.