Walter Inglis Anderson (American/Mississippi, 1903-1965) , "New Orleans", c. 1943, watercolor and graphite on paper, estate stamp upper left, blind stamp upper right, unsigned, 25 in. x 19 in., framed. Note: For Walter Anderson, art was a way to understand and interact with the world around him. Space, form, color and shape were the tools used by the artist to realize a connection to nature, or in some cases, the man-made world. In 1941, Agnes Anderson arranged for her husband and children to relocate to her father’s home, Oldfields, in Gautier, Mississippi. While at Oldfields, Anderson was particularly productive, creating thousands of prints and original works. Moving away from strict realism, he developed his key concept of “realization,” the idea that nature possesses an underlying order which the artist must reveal. Anderson produced linoleum block prints larger than any ever made in the United States. He also completed thousands of pen-and-ink drawings and watercolors. Forbidden by his father-in-law from painting directly on the interior plaster, Anderson created large mural sheets, including some New Orleans street scenes, and tacked them onto the walls at Oldfields. Around 1943, Anderson traveled to New Orleans by bicycle, reaching the city around dawn. He purchased a packing crate (having been unable to locate a camp stool) and sat and sketched on Canal Street and several other locations throughout the city. He drew the crowds, architecture and cars, later pronouncing it all very “stimulating.” Anderson sought to create a sense of a fully articulated three-dimensional world in his two-dimensional works, and he succeeded beautifully in his rare series of New Orleans watercolors. In the work offered here, three women and a man stride along a sidewalk, while several cars motor alongside them. In addition to using color for great effect, juxtaposing and mixing primary and secondary colors, the watercolor displays Anderson’s unique use of perspective and negative space to convey the movement of the city scene – a rarity in an oeuvre devoted almost entirely to the natural world. Ref.: Maurer, Christopher. Fortune’s Favorite Child: The Uneasy Life of Walter Anderson. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003; Pinson, Patricia, ed. The Art of Walter Anderson. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi and The Walter Anderson Museum of Art, 2003

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