Collections: American Art: Niagara Falls

• Download
• Add to set
• Favorite
• Posse icon
• Share
• Print

Niagara Falls

Little is known about Arthur Parton’s watercolor activities, although he did exhibit regularly with the American Watercolor Society beginning in 1880. Depicting one of America’s most sublime and popular landscape subjects, this ambitious picture provides a good example of an exhibition watercolor. Its highly textured surface—created with opaque paints—approximates the material and atmospheric effects Parton achieved in his oil paintings.


• Artist: Arthur Parton, American, 1842-1914
• Medium: Transparent and opaque watercolor on cream, thick, moderately textured wove paper
• Dates: ca. 1880
• Dimensions: 21 x 29 11/16 in. (53.3 x 75.4 cm) Frame: 25 1/2 x 34 x 2 in. (64.8 x 86.4 x 5.1 cm)
• Signature: Signed lower right: "Arthur Parton"
• Collections: American Art
• Museum Location: This item is not on view
• Accession Number: 70.174
• Credit Line: Gift of the Henfield Foundation, Inc.
• Image: Overall, 70.174_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
Arthur Parton (American, 1842-1914). Niagara Falls, ca. 1880. Transparent and opaque watercolor on cream, thick, moderately textured wove paper, 21 x 29 11/16 in. (53.3 x 75.4 cm) Frame: 25 1/2 x 34 x 2 in. (64.8 x 86.4 x 5.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Henfield Foundation, Inc., 70.174 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 70.174_SL1.jpg)