Betty Watson (American, b. 1928), Woman and Man, Sunlight and Shadow

Acrylic on canvas, signed at the upper right, inscribed and labeled to the verso.

50 1/4 x 40 in.

Private Collection, North Carolina

Betty Watson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and earned a B.A. in Art History from Wellesley College in 1949 and later completed an M.F.A. at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1965. Watson studied lithography with John Opper and painted portraits of poets such as Randall Jarrell and Allen Tate. Over a career spanning more than fifty years in Greensboro, North Carolina, she explored a broad range of subjects—from portraits and interior scenes to landscapes and abstract cloudscapes—and is known for her intense use of color, light, and shadow. In 2006, GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art mounted a major retrospective covering six decades of her work.

A few scuffs to the canvas edge; a scratch to the upper left and lower right corners.