William Zorach

Drawing heavily from Cubism and Fauvism, William Zorach turned to the natural world for inspiration for his watercolor paintings. He was intensely moved by Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays about nature, relating Emerson's desire to shed traditional modes of thought with the innovation that early American modernists were promoting. Zorach’s landscape paintings reflect the power and spontaneity of the natural world. “There are things one does for the pure love of form and color, in the easy abandonment to the moods and the fancies of the moment,” he said. “These are my watercolors.” Later in life, Zorach would turn primarily to sculpture, creating stylized figurative works with which he explored themes of his domestic life with wife and fellow artist Marguerite.