Located in Philadelphia, PA
Peter Caledon Cameron
(American, born Scotland, 1852-c. 1920)
Absecon Island, New Jersey, 1894
Watercolor on paper, 17 1/2 x 27 inches (sight)
FRAMED: 26 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches
Signed and dated at lower left: "ABSECON.ISLAND./ N.J-U.S.A Cameron/1894" N.J-U.S.A Cameron/1894"
Born in Perth, Scotland, Peter Caledon Cameron won awards for drawing and penmanship at a Glasgow public school. He claimed that at the age of fourteen his watercolors were already "in demand," and that before turning twenty he had "crossed every ocean in the world, sketching and painting as he went." He attended the Government School of Design in London and was certified as an art master in 1883. Cameron immigrated to the United States that year, settled in Philadelphia, and commenced work on large history paintings such as Niagara in Winter (unlocated) and Vesuvius in Grand Eruption (unlocated) that he exhibited in various northern cities. He exhibited one painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1902. Nothing is known of his activities later in life.
In a lengthy inscription that accompanies this watercolor, Cameron noted that Absecon was "a piece of the best sand-dune region characteristic of the whole coast of New Jersey State from Sandy Hook point in the North to Cape May Point in the extreme south." This was one among a number of studies the artist made for a large oil painting titled "Captain Kidd Burying His Treasure" (unlocated). The famous Scottish privateer Captain William Kidd...
Category
Naturalistic 1890s Art
MaterialsPaper, Watercolor