Henry Farrer, who came to America from England in 1862, is recognized as playing an important role in the development of watercolor during the second half of the nineteenth century. He contributed annually to the exhibitions of the American Water Color Society over thirty-seven consecutive years, beginning with the Society’s inaugural event in 1867. Later in his career, critics for the New York Times consistently made example of Farrer’s work “as a barometer of the ups and downs of the American watercolor movement” (1).

Farrer was a self-taught artist who was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement and later, Tonalism. Farrer exhibited at the National Academy of Design, the Brooklyn Art Association, the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, and the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle. He was a member of the Artists Fund Society, the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers in London, and a founder of the New York Etching Club. He lived and worked in Brooklyn until his death in 1903.

1. Stephanie Wiles, “A Survey of Watercolors by Henry Farrer” in Master Drawings, vol. 40, no. 4, Nineteenth Century British and American Drawings (Winter, 2002), 317 .