An American in Paris: watercolor, notes artist Barbara Ernst Prey, "develops on its own.... You have an idea, but the beauty is in the process.... It's so fluid, and accidents can happen.".

• Position: Museums Today

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SHOWCASING a collection of 80 works in watercolor that span her entire career, "An American View: Barbara Ernst Prey" provides valuable insight into the artistic paths this talented painter has chosen to follow. Drawing from the technical tradition of renowned artists such as Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper and carrying on their development of a truly American school, Prey's paintings nevertheless move in their own direction in terms of treatment and subject matter. They evoke the somewhat subtle symbols of the spirit of America and its cultural foundations--a fluttering home-sewn quilt, lingering twilight on the coast of Maine Adirondack chairs grouped in the family garden, lobster fisherman's dories at rest. These are images of the soul of the country and its unified spirit, emblems that speak to fifth-generation Americans as well as newly arrived immigrants.

"These [images] connect us, as viewers, to the land (and the sea): these scenes link us to place, history, and elemental human pursuits in the face of our frenetic, technology-dominated lives," writes exhibition curator Sarah Cash of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The pristine landscapes and seascapes ... suggest the power and permanence of nature in contrast to the relative transience of human life.... Our imaginations not only are enticed by the houses, boats, and sheds themselves, but also by the exquisitely wrought details that animate the compositions....

"Prey has made art with intense energy and deep commitment since her childhood, and continues to do so at every juncture. In short, she possesses (and exhibits) a heartfelt passion for life, art, and their inherent and always provocative interconnectedness. Her career is 38 years young; her lifelong learning continues unabated. The artist continues to take the watercolor medium, which has an august role in the history of American art, to innovative places. Looking as well as seeing, she searches out new vistas, compositions, and ideas in the landscapes and environments that are her home....

"Recently, some of her work has exhibited more abstract tendencies. There are lone, large-scale boats set against stark backgrounds of deep blue water, not bounded by foreground or sky ('Vanishing Point'); buoy workshops whose exteriors read like color field paintings ('Finish Coat'); and minimal, nearly abstract seascapes devoid of the familiar boats ('Birdhouses'). Lone figures enliven more narrative...