James Fletcher-Watson

R.I., R.B.A.
1913 - 2004

James Fletcher-Watson is regarded as one of the leading British watercolour landscape painters of his time. He started exhibiting at the age of twenty, and later held one-man exhibitions in America, Australia and London, while continuing to build his other career, as an architect.

During the Second World War, he was dispatched to India with the Royal Engineers to oversee camouflage, and to design forward runways into Burma. He sketched and painted wherever he went, and his remarkable pictures of India have since been published in a book, Soldier Artist in Wartime India.

James Fletcher-Watson was a member of The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour (RI) and the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA). He exhibited at the Royal Academy, and received an award at the Paris Salon. He wrote many articles and several teaching books on watercolour painting, including The Magic of Watercolour and Watercolour Secrets.

After moving to the Cotswolds, he established his Windrush Gallery, where he held annual exhibitions and ran regular painting courses. His younger daughter, Josephine Neil, now lives in the family home where she runs a programme of watercolour courses, continuing to promote the pure watercolour tradition in which he believed so strongly. His older daughter, Vanessa Whinney, has also established the James Fletcher-Watson RI Award for a pure watercolour composition.