BIOGRAPHY
"Realism that is too real...doesn't...work." Mark W. Potter
Path to Connecticut studio.
Adirondack studio, early years.
MARK WINSLOW POTTER
Born: October 27, 1929.
Grew up: Scarborough and Ossining, NY.
Studied: Art Student's League under George Grosz, Bernard Klonis, Robert Brackman. At Yale, under Joseph Albers.
Graduated: Yale University, 1952. B.A. Art
Married: Barbara Baldwin, 1952. Built CT studio, 1955.
Raised: Five children in Woodbury, CT where he lived and painted 40 years.
Maintained: Adirondack studio and painted there summers throughout his life.
Taught: Painting/Drawing ~The Taft School, 1955-1995. "Painted Space: Problems and Concepts," a College Seminar at Yale University, 1979.
Painted: Watercolors for Merchant Ivory film: The Europeans, 1979.
Died: December 1995, after a short illness at age 66.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Graham Gallery, NYC 1965-1967
Adirondack Museum, NY 1994
Lake Placid Center for the Arts, NY 1994
David Findlay Jr. Fine Art, New York, NY 1997, 1998
Randall Tuttle Art Gallery, CT 1979, 1983, 1991
Washington Art Association, CT 1976, 1984, 2000
Woodbury Library Gallery, CT 1980
Colonial Gallery, Waterbury, CT 1965
Taft School Spring Exhibition, Watertown, CT 1964
Sharon Playhouse Gallery, CT 1963
Decoy Gallery, Kennett Square, PA 1962
short video clip of Mark Winslow Potter
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Academy of Fine Arts - Nat'l Traveling Exhibit 1985
American Artist Mag. Top 100 Paintings 1985
Washington Art Association 1976, 1980, 1982
Nat'l Academy of Design 1964, 1969
Audubon Artists 1962
American Watercolor Society 1962, 1966
Waterbury Arts Festival 1961, 1966
New Haven Festival of the Arts 1959, 1970
Wadsworth Athenaeum 1959.
Silvermine Guild - Art of the Northeast Exhibition 1956, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1971, 1977, 1985, 1987, 1991, 1994.
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Adirondack Museum, New Britain Museum of American Art, Yale Univ. Divinity School, Beineke Library, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Midland Bank Art Gallery, Doris Duke Collection, Highland Search Group, Bank Boston, Heublein Inc.
AWARDS - PRIZES
1956, The Jury of Silvermine’s Art of the Northeast Exhibition awarded Barn Interior #1 for Best Oil Painting.
1959, Juror Lloyd Goodrich awarded Spilt Basket Best Watercolor at the Silvermine's Art of the Northeast Exhibition.
1963, Juror Lloyd Goodrich awarded Augusta and Her House a Watercolor Award at Silvermine's Art of the Northeast Exhibition.
1966, Snow Fields received Best in Show at Waterbury’s Festival of Arts.
1971, Juror Lawrence Alloway selected Spilt Basket the Landscape Painting (oil) Award at Silvermine’s 22nd Art of the Northeast Exhibition.
1985, Juror Hilton Kramer selected Bathers at Judson’s Farm for a Painting Award at the Silvermine 36th Art of the Northeast Exhibition.
1985 American Artist magazine selected Bathers at Judson’s Farm one of the year’s Top 100 Paintings.
1987, Juror Patterson Sims awarded Grandson a Painting Award at the Art of the Northeast Exhibition.
EARLY LIFE
Annual pilgrimages up the Hudson to the unspoiled wilderness of a family enclave in the Adirondacks highlighted and informed Potter's early years. It is hard to overstate its influence upon Potter, especially as modernity encroached.
Too young to serve in WWII with his father and older brother, Potter spent those formative summers exploring the mountains and forests of the Adirondacks alone with his sketch pad. At night, by oil lamp, Potter's favorite books, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle, fired his imagination.
Potter's early works reveal Andrew Wyeth's influence in their respect for tone and structural minimalism. The remembrance of things past, from the loss of the Connecticut farms to the virgin forests of the Adirondacks, so evident in his early work, also haunts the canvasses of his later years where Potter built on austere compositions with richer color.
Sometimes described as a "magic realist", Potter's later work continued to be infused with mystery as well as hints of fantasy.
REMEMBERED
:: "Mark Potter Pictures and Words" by Langdon Quin.
:: "Mark Potter 1929-1995: Selected Works" March-April 1997. David Findlay Jr. Fine Art, NYC.
:: "Mark W. Potter '48" By Lance R. Odden, Headmaster. The Taft School Bulletin, Spring 1996.
:: Mark W. Potter Education Center at Adirondack Museum.