His father was a cartoonist and illustrator for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper and a well-known photo engraver, commercial artist and sign painter (he also made posters for some local theaters).

He drew the cartoon "Amos Hokum" for the Afro-American newspaper in Baltimore starting in 1923 and wrote a humor column of the same name.

[11][12][13] In 1948, when Watson was 19 years old and a freshman at Penn State, several of his works were reviewed by prominent New York artists Chaim Gross and Moses Soyer.

After serving in Korea and Japan, he was discharged in 1953 as a staff sergeant, returned home and married his first wife Julia, an artist and illustrator.

[10][25] He painted Philadelphia and the region in rosy tones, whether he was using soft pastels or gritty earth colors to evoke a mood.

[27][28][29] His paintings were cheerful, his figures – who "are just shapes and color," he explained - enjoying carefree idyllic lives in the city and suburbs blanketed in snow or bathed in light.

He saw homeless people on the streets, he told a Chestnut Hill Local reporter in 1988, and was affected by their predicament but chose not to paint it.

"[31] Around 1954, Watson painted a portrait in gouache of the noted African American singer Marian Anderson, her face superimposed above Philadelphia rowhouses in the background.

She is shown "in her native urban context," stated the introduction in the 2015 catalog for Woodmere Art Museum's "We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s.

[36] In 1994, he was commissioned by Clinton's staff to create a watercolor as a gift to Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos, who had been a cadet at West Point.

[28][9] Watson also produced paintings for Vice President Walter Mondale, singer Perry Como, former NBA coach Jack Ramsay and former Eagles player Tom Brookshier.

"[20] Watson exhibited his paintings, participated in award programs and was a fixture with the Rittenhouse Square Art Show for several decades, including chairman of its annual competition in 1989.

[38] He also participated in shows by the Pyramid Club, a social organization of Black professional men that held an annual art exhibit starting in 1941.

[42] In 1968, he exhibited in the first of a series of shows at Cheyney State College (now university) with an aim to broaden the scope of the school's 1,900 students.

At La Salle University’s Black Student Union in 1969, he joined Britt, Howard, Barbara Bullock, Paul Keene and Louis B. Sloan in an African American Arts Festival featuring 28 artists.

[49][50] In 1974, he participated in an exhibit at the Ridgeway Recreation Center titled "Old Way in New World" along with Roland Ayers, Benjamin Britt, James Brantley and Walter Edmonds.

[51] At the Philadelphia Free Library in 1988, Watson was featured in an exhibit titled "The Pride, the Prejudice," which explored how Blacks had been portrayed in various media over three centuries.

The works were from the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University and the Print and Picture Department at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

[52] Stephens curated another exhibit of prints of Black artists in the library's collection in 1992, and Watson was represented, as well as Roland Ayers, Benjamin Britt, Robert Jefferson, Columbus P. Knox, Tom McKinney, Cal Massey, Ellen Powell Tiberino, Joseph Holston and Sam Byrd.

[53] In the 1997 exhibit "Religion Through Brown Eyes," he was joined by Cal Massey, Barbara Bullock, Paul Keene, Benny Andrews, Charles Searles and Columbus P. Knox.

Sponsored by Bucks County Council on the Arts, the exhibit included Ranulph Bye, Jack Bookbinder and E. Fenno Hoffman.

[34][58][9] From 1962 to 1966, Watson painted watercolors for the Philadelphia Inquirer for a series depicting city and regional scenes titled "The World We Live In" that were reproduced in the newspaper.

A commercial artist during the week, according to the accompanying text, he spent weekends walking the streets of the city painting scenes that "strike his fancy."

[21][81][14][42][24][69] Watson participated in the U.S. State Department Art in Embassies program, through which his paintings hung in Montevideo, Uruguay; La Paz, Bolivia; Bamako, Mali, and Kigali, Rwanda.

The group held shows at Shelmerdine mansion, which it hoped to purchase to house its headquarters, art gallery and workshops for professional and advanced amateur artists.

Watson was among artists in its first show, organized a few months before the group was formalized, along with Benton Spruance, Mildred Dillon and Jack Bookbinder.

Watson headed the curatorial committee, inviting professional painters, sculptors, printmakers and photographers in the Delaware Valley to submit work.

In early 1965, the group held a retrospective on pioneer photographer Berenice Abbott of New York, who had worked with Man Ray in Paris in the 1920s.

[88][89][90] Watson was on the board of Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, which provided legal and business services for culture groups.

In 1973, he was appointed to a Pennsylvania committee to review the arts industry to help inform the state on grants to local organizations.