Alexander Nepote Early Midcentury Modern California Watercolor

Description

Artist: Alexander Nepote – American (1913-1986)
Title: Untitled
Year: circa 1940
Medium: Watercolor
Size: 14.5 x 22 inches.
Signature: Signed … more Artist: Alexander Nepote – American (1913-1986)
Title: Untitled
Year: circa 1940
Medium: Watercolor
Size: 14.5 x 22 inches.
Signature: Signed lower right
Condition: Excellent
Frame: Unframed

This watercolor landscape is by the well-known California artist Alexander Nepote. It is semi-abstract. Nepote’s landscape work always referenced nature, but over time, it became more abstract; that is the reason I have estimated the period this painting was done as circa 1940. The painting is done in a wet in wet technique which was used by a number of California modernists. It is on a heavy watercolor paper and is in excellent condition. Unframed.


A native Californian, Nepote grew up in the Central Valley. He studied art at the California College of Arts and Crafts, earning his MFA from Mills College.
After World War II, he became a professor and Dean of the Faculty at the California College of Arts and Crafts, later serving as Art Professor at California State University in San Francisco.
His art progressed from wet in wet landscapes of farms and city scenes in the 1930's. The next two decades his work became more abstract. In the 1960's his preferred subject matter was rock shapes and textures.
For twenty five years, he participated in most watercolor exhibitions in the Bay Area between 1935 and 1960. He was a founding member of a group known as "The Layerists", placing his multi-media works in their shows.
The above information was taken from McClelland and Last's book California Watercolors 002).

Birth place: Valley Home, CA
Death place: Millbrae, CA
Addresses: Millbrae, CA; Oakland, CA, 1976
Profession: Painter, educator
Studied: Calif. Col. A. & Cr. (B.A., 1939); Mills Col.; Univ. Calif.; with M. Sheets; Vytlacil.
Exhibited: GGE, 1939; Oakland Art Gal., 1940-41 (prizes); Calif. State Fair, 1941 (prize); Santa Cruz Art Lg., 1938 (prize); Riverside Mus., 1944; United Nations Conference Exh., San Francisco, 1945; SFMA, 1934-46, 1953 (prize), 1955; Worcester Art Mus., 1951; MMA, 1952; Art: USA, 1958; Am. Federation Arts Traveling Exhib., 1958-59; Americans,VMFA, 1962. Awards: Prizes, Calif. WC Soc., 1955 (purchase prize); Oakland Mus., 1947-48, 1955; San Mateo County Fairs, 1954-55; San Francisco Art Festival, 1951-53; Jack London Square Exhib., 1965 & Rio Hondo, CA, 1968; first award, San Mateo Art Fiesta, 1969.

Member: Am. Soc. for Aesthetics; Calif. Nat. Watercolor Soc; Peninsula Art Assn; San Francisco AA.
Work: SFMA; Oakland Art Mus.; MMA; Pasadena Art Mus.; CPLH; Mills College; LACMA; Univ. of Michigan; Denver Art Mus.
Comments: Teaching: prof. art & dean faculty, Calif. College Arts & Crafts, 1945-50; prof. art, Calif. State Univ., San Francisco, 1950-70s.
Sources: WW73; WW47. More recently, see Hughes, Artists in California, 401; P&H Samuels, 345. less