Harry Willson Watrous (17 September 1857 – 10 May 1940) was an American artist who received an academic education in France.

His paintings included genre scenes, stylized figural works, landscapes, nocturnes, portraits, religious subjects, and still lifes.

"[3] These works "of cabinet size…descended directly from such seventeenth-century masters as Metsu, Terborch, and Vermeer," and later, Vibert and Meissonier.It is not a simple matter to reproduce with oil paint the sheen of satins and silks, the softness of furs and the richness of velvets, especially when it comes to doing it on a small canvas with the minute precision required in a picture that is intended to be seen at close range.…The strain upon an artist's eyes in doing such miniature-like work is very great and in the case of Mr. Watrous effectually prevented his continuing it, having seriously affected his sight.

His humor finds expression in demure revelations of feminine moods and modes, while his recognition of tragic consequences resulting from conscious or unconscious causes is revealed in the two best known of his "problem pictures," called The Dregs and The Drop Sinister…There is a commonly held viewpoint that these particular paintings are of trifling consequence, but those who hold it completely overlook their importance as social records and their rare technique.

On the first of these, in 1908, American Art News commented, "Harry Watrous' Fair Penitent [aka Devotion] is…well thought out and well painted.

"[15] The Sun denounced a later example: "The succès de scandale of the Academy [exhibit of 1916]…is called Lead Us Not Into Temptation, a prayer that Mr. Watrous himself should utter each time he feels inclined to paint.

It shows a profane young woman in shockingly frivolous gauzes and flamboyant morning cap, kneeling upon a garish prie-dieu for prayers, but judging by the simper upon her foolish face her 'words fly up' while her 'thoughts remain below.'

"Around 1923 he began to paint still lifes, usually arrangements of the antique decorative objects he eagerly collected,"[21] including a number of Buddhist images.

Several objects, tapestries, and pieces of furniture appear in more than one painting, as Watrous recombined them for different effects over the years.

In the 1930s, employing devices that recall "works by earlier American trompe-l'œil ("deceive the eye") painters," he created images of weathered religious icons.

"Exploring a new vein, he exercised a new power and in spite of advancing years made these religious pictures the best of his career.

"[25] Another piece on the exhibit in The New York Times declared, "No American artist is more deeply respected or widely loved than he.…One need not hesitate for a moment to decide that Harry Watrous is doing the best work of his career right now.

"Harry W. Watrous preaches and paints well an interesting sermon on the negro question in The Drop Sinister," commented American Art News,[30] which also called it "one of his best canvases.

"[31] This "study in the fruits of miscegenation…caused an extraordinary amount of discussion, residents of one typically Southern city threatening to wreck the art museum if it was shown there.

Because 90,000,000 of her neighbors, good Christian, noble, civilized people are going to insult her, seek to ruin her and slam the door of opportunity in her face the moment they discover "The Drop Sinister.

[42] Celebration of the Mass was shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1935, where it was awarded the Walter Lippincott Prize.

[43] In his role as a member and officer of the National Academy of Design, Watrous often championed old-fashioned artistic values.

A striking example is his letter from 1917 conveying a resolution by the academy showing disapproval of the new Lincoln sculpture by George Gray Barnard: Whereas, the impression prevails that the replicas offered to France and England of a statue of Lincoln by George Gray Barnard in Cincinnati are being offered as gifts from the people of America, presumably with the approval of the artists and art organizations of this country, therefore, Resolved, That the Council of the National Academy of Design hereby asserts that there has been no approval of this statue on the part of the National Academy as a body, and, further, that the members of this Council as here assembled do not consider that the statue adequately portrays Lincoln.

"[45] Later in 1933, the disbursement of Civil Works Administration funds to artists made front-page news when Watrous and others protested that the decision-making committee was unfairly tilted toward Modernists.

In 1934, Diego Rivera was commissioned to paint a mural, Man at the Crossroads, for the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center.

His collection came to include palettes from Ralph Blakelock, William Merritt Chase, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, George Inness, Francis Davis Millet (who died on the Titanic), Thomas Moran, Elihu Vedder, and Watrous himself.

[50] Both editions included a facsimile letter in which (surprisingly for such a conservative realist painter) Watrous's appreciation of the palettes as works of art and expressions of the artist's psyche foreshadows theories of abstract expressionism: It was never my intention to take the public into my confidence and allow it a glimpse of this collection during my life, after which it would probably go to the National Academy of Design.

For they are pictures, and in living with them I see the painters and what they love to paint, though many of the hands that held these palettes will never again clasp mine on earth.

Her father, William Snowden Nichols, was a member of the New York Stock Exchange, and she grew up in the posh neighborhood of Grymes Hill, Staten Island.

Dun & Co. described him as "a young man of decided artistic tastes, of good character and habits & well fitted for his present occupation.

[72] (A court would later rule that Katherine Ballou was a common-law wife and that the estate of Walter Watrous was not responsible for her $5825 debt to a dressmaker.

[77] He was also an avid boater, owning two steam yachts christened Ruth and Camper,[78] and winning trophies in the annual sailboat regatta.

When he returned he was horrified to find that Blakelock had been turning the old red and flowered cloths to a practical use, his family of some eight or ten children being dressed in them, while the entire group enjoyed the comforts of the large studio.

Now he realizes, and he smiles as he contemplates the lost opportunity, that he might have had a small fortune had he kept those pictures and sold them after the boom in Blakelocks arrived.

He had a bubbling sense of humor, besides kindness and never-failing good will.…Harry Watrous had charm and it was the more potent because he gave no thought to its cultivation but was simply and spontaneously his engaging self.