Famous Watercolor Paintings: 10 Masterpieces in the Hardest Medium

Famous watercolor paintings carry a special kind of respect, because watercolor is the medium that forgives nothing. It is transparent and fast, so a painter cannot fully bury a mistake, only plan around it, reserving the white of the paper for every highlight before the first brushstroke lands. The artists below treated that difficulty as the point. The best known are Albrecht Durer’s Young Hare and Great Piece of Turf, J.M.W. Turner’s luminous skies, William Blake’s visionary Great Red Dragon, John James Audubon’s Birds of America, Winslow Homer’s Caribbean and Adirondack scenes, Paul Cezanne’s late watercolors, John Singer Sargent’s travel work, Wassily Kandinsky’s early abstract watercolour, Georgia O’Keeffe’s early sheets, and Paul Klee’s colored grids.

Here is what each one is, where it lives, and why it matters.

Albrecht Durer, Young Hare and Great Piece of Turf (1502 to 1503)

Young Hare is probably the most famous watercolor study ever made. Durer rendered a single hare with such patience that you can count the hairs and see a window reflected in its eye. Its companion, Great Piece of Turf, does the same for a clump of ordinary weeds and grass, treating them with the seriousness usually reserved for saints. Both prove that watercolor could carry the highest observation. They are held at the Albertina in Vienna.

J.M.W. Turner, The Blue Rigi (1842)

The Blue Rigi: Sunrise shows a Swiss mountain floating in the cool haze of dawn over a lake, and it stands for Turner’s lifelong love of watercolor. He used the medium to chase light and atmosphere further than oil could go, letting washes bleed and glow until form nearly dissolves into weather. A public campaign saved the work for Britain in 2007. It is held at Tate in London.

William Blake, The Great Red Dragon (around 1805)

The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun is the best known of Blake’s intense visionary watercolors, illustrating a terrifying passage from the Book of Revelation. Blake built his own private mythology in ink and watercolor, working outside the fashions of his time, and this towering red figure has since seeped into popular culture. It is held at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

John James Audubon, The Birds of America (1827 to 1838)

The Birds of America is one of the great achievements of natural history and of watercolor together. Audubon painted every bird at life size in dramatic, lifelike poses, capturing behavior and character as much as feathers. The original watercolors that the famous engravings were made from are held at the New-York Historical Society, and the printed book remains one of the most valuable ever produced.

Winslow Homer, Caribbean and Adirondack watercolors (1870s to 1900s)

Winslow Homer is often called the greatest American watercolorist. When he traveled to the Bahamas, Florida, and the Adirondacks, he worked in swift, brilliant washes that caught wet light, moving water, and the heat of the sun with astonishing freshness. He once said he expected to be remembered for his watercolors, and many people think he was right. Major examples hang at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Paul Cezanne, late watercolors (around 1900 to 1906)

Paul Cezanne is famous for oil, yet his late watercolors are treasured for their openness and daring. He left much of the paper bare and built objects and mountains from a few floating patches of transparent color, letting the white breathe between them. Those spare, structural sheets pointed the way toward modern painting. They are held in major museums around the world.

John Singer Sargent, travel watercolors (around 1900 to 1915)

John Singer Sargent turned to watercolor for pleasure once he tired of society portraits, and the results are dazzling. Painting gondolas, gardens, marble quarries, and sunlit friends on holiday, he worked with a loose, confident wetness that makes light look effortless. Museums competed for the work in his lifetime, and the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston hold large groups of it today.

Wassily Kandinsky, early abstract watercolour (around 1910)

Wassily Kandinsky is linked to a famous watercolor traditionally dated around 1910 and often described as one of the first purely abstract works, a loose burst of color and line with no subject to name. Some scholars question the exact date, so it is safest to call it an early and pivotal abstract watercolour rather than provably the very first. Either way it marks a turning point, and it is held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Georgia O’Keeffe, early watercolors (around 1916 to 1918)

Georgia O’Keeffe began her career with a remarkable run of small watercolors, painted while teaching in Texas. Series like her glowing evening stars reduced the wide plains sky to a few bold, saturated washes, an early sign of the daring simplicity she would become famous for. These sheets are held at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and other collections.

Paul Klee, watercolors (1914 to the 1930s)

Paul Klee found his voice in watercolor after a trip to Tunisia in 1914 flooded his work with color. He built shimmering grids and dreamlike scenes from transparent squares of wash, treating color almost like music, and he made watercolor central to modern art. Many of his works are held at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern and museums worldwide.

What watercolor can teach you

The thread through all ten is planning and nerve. Because watercolor will not let you paint over your errors, every artist here had to see the finished picture before they began, deciding where the light would live and protecting it. Durer planned every hair, Turner planned where to let the wash run wild, Cezanne planned what to leave blank.

That is the gift of the medium if you try it. It forces you to think a painting all the way through, to work from light to dark, and to trust the white of the paper. Start small, plan your lights, and let a little water do its own thing. If this draws you in, our guide to famous historical oil paintings shows how the other great tradition built its surfaces, and the famous landscape paintings roundup follows painters chasing the same light Turner loved. You can see these works beside the broader most famous paintings of all time, and browse the full art history and famous paintings collection to keep going.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most famous watercolor painting?

Albrecht Durer's Young Hare, painted around 1502 and held at the Albertina in Vienna, is often named the most famous watercolor study ever made. J.M.W. Turner's atmospheric watercolors and Winslow Homer's later works are also among the best known in the medium.

Why is watercolor considered so difficult?

Watercolor is transparent and fast, so you cannot easily cover a mistake the way you can in oil or acrylic. You have to plan your lights, work from thin to dark, and let the white of the paper do the work of your brightest areas. That demand for control and planning is exactly what great watercolorists mastered.

Did famous oil painters also use watercolor?

Yes. Many artists best known for oil, including Cezanne, Sargent, and Homer, produced major bodies of watercolor work, often when traveling, because the kit is light and dries fast. For some of them the watercolors are now prized as highly as the oils.

Is watercolor good for beginners?

Watercolor is affordable and portable, which makes it easy to start, but it rewards planning, so beginners do best by learning to control water, work light to dark, and reserve the white of the paper early. It teaches you to think a painting through before you touch the brush.