Sunny April Morning, Betws-y-Coed, North Wales

Watts was born and educated in Birmingham and studied at the Birmingham School of Art. He was familiar with the writings of John Ruskin and the works of the Pre-Raphaelites and his fidelity to nature and sense of realism, as seen in the present drawing, reveal his adherence to Ruskinian principles. He was particularly fascinated by the play of light upon leaves and through trees, views in North Wales being among his favourite subjects. After his marriage in 1883 he moved to Liverpool and exhibited there, and at galleries in London and in his native Birmingham and at the Royal Academy from 1878. Newall notes of Watts' watercolours that they combine, 'meticulous detail with a sense of atmosphere', C. Newall, Victorian Landscape Watercolours, New York, 1992, p. 186.