The Watercolour World is a UK-based charity founded in 2016 by Fred Hohler (founder of the Public Catalogue Foundation) to create an online gazetteer of the world pre-1900.[1]
Supporters
editThe charity’s joint patrons are King Charles III[2] and Queen Camilla. The official launch was held at the Royal Academy of Arts on 31 January 2019.[3] The Watercolour World is supported financially by its co-founder, Javad Marandi through the Marandi Foundation.[4][5] Sir Charles Saumarez Smith is chairman of the trustees and Fred Hohler is executive director of the charity.[6]
Project
editThe project catalogues and makes freely available watercolours of identifiable places and landscapes, primarily drawn between 1750 and 1900.[7] Images are taken from private, governmental and military collections − the latter stemming from the fact that officers at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich studied drawing and were taught how to survey landscapes by artists such as Paul Sandby.[8] The Watercolour World is of use to historians and climate change scientists because it shows how the world looked prior to the age of photography.[9] For example, the extent of the loss of Himalayan ice fields is obvious from images dating back to the 1840s.[10] The charity collates material from around the globe: the Rijksmuseum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans have contributed images alongside the British Museum, the Royal Collection and Chatsworth.[6][9]
References
edit- ^ "THE WATERCOLOUR WORLD - Charity 1167968". register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk.
- ^ Furness, Hannah (31 January 2019). "Prince Charles backs scheme to save 150 years of 'utterly irreplaceable' watercolours". The Telegraph.
- ^ "The Duchess of Cornwall attends celebration to mark the launch of The Watercolour World". artdaily.cc.
- ^ "Arts & Design | The Marandi Foundation".
- ^ "Saving the world's watercolours one byte at a time". March 9, 2018.
- ^ a b "Watercolour World". www.watercolourworld.org.
- ^ Miers, Mary (March 8, 2019). "In Focus: The vast trove of watercolours documenting the world as it looked before photography". Country Life.
- ^ "The Watercolour World: reviving paintings of the past". Lux Magazine. July 29, 2019.
- ^ a b "Pre-photographic images 'saved' in new online archive". January 31, 2019.
- ^ "Our lost world in watercolours – the paintings that documented Earth". the Guardian. February 14, 2019.