Windy Day in October, Sedgwick, Maine

1988

Windy Day in October, Sedgwick, Maine, 1988. Joseph O'Sickey (American, 1918–2013). Watercolor with graphite pencil on white wove paper; image and sheet: 57 x 76.2 cm (22 7/16 x 30 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift 2020.148 Joseph O'Sickey spent much of his life and career in Northeast Ohio, where he took classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art as a child and later taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art, among other institutions. This watercolor is one of many that the artist made, seeing the medium as well suited for his creative experimentation with color and form. Here, he used loose brushstrokes free from outlines to depict the natural light and effects of weather near his second home in Maine, where he vacationed for over three decades. Joseph O'Sickey often painted outdoors, a practice that was facilitated by the portability of watercolor.