Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Preview image of work. watercolor over graphite on off-white wove paper, Moose Horn 8984

1978.37

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Moose Horn

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Artist

Neil Welliver (Millville, Pennsylvania, 7/22/1929 - 4/5/2005, Belfast, Maine)

Title

Moose Horn

Creation Date

1977

Century

20th century

Dimensions

33 7/8 in. x 29 5/8 in. (86.04 cm x 75.25 cm)

Object Type

watercolor

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

watercolor over graphite on off-white wove paper

Credit Line

Museum Purchase, Elizabeth B. G. Hamlin Fund

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

1978.37

Based on observations made in the Maine woods, which he visited regularly, Welliver rendered the environmental repercussions of the work of beavers that flooded the terrain with their dams. “I like what they do,” Welliver commented in conversation with Edgar Allen Beem, adding that “I see more than other people do. I knew even as a child that I saw more than others saw.” Welliver’s vision was shaped by his training at Yale University with Josef Albers (1888--1976) and by his attentiveness to the techniques of artists such as Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and Paul Klee. In “Moose Horn,” a watery ground reflects the sky, boulders mimic clouds, and a range of mountains floats upward. A thicket of trees in the foreground unites the heavens and the earth, even as they accentuate the graphite lines that provide structure to the vibrant watercolor that overruns them.