Patricia Watwood

Patricia Watwood was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of seven children. At 17 she left St. Louis to pursue a degree in Scenic Design at Trinity University in San Antonio Texas. During college, she began design work in regional theatres in Texas, Missouri, Washington, Colorado and Germany. After graduating Magna Cum Laude, Watwood settled in Seattle, Washington. There she began studying at The Academy of Realist Art, which marked the beginning of her studies in traditional painting, and a new direction in her career.

In 1996, Watwood and her husband moved to New York City so she could continue to pursue her training. She entered the masters program at the New York Academy Graduate School of Figurative Art and she began studying with Jacob Collins at his private Brooklyn brownstone studio. With ten other students, she moved from Collins' private studio to the Water Street Atelier when it was founded in April of 1997. In 1998, Watwood and her husband took a sabbatical, and traveled to the Loire Valley, France for eight months. There, she studied with the American artist Ted Seth Jacobs, who founded the Ecole Albert Defois in Les Cerqueux sous Passavant. Upon returning to New York, Watwood completed her Masters of Fine Art in 1999.
Watwood has exhibited in group and solo shows in New York, Paris, Houston, San Francisco and Long Island. Her work is represented by Hirschl & Adler Galleries, NY; and John Pence Gallery in San Francisco. Her figurative paintings have been included in several museum shows, including "Slow Painting," at the Oglethorpe Museum, "The Great American Nude," at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences, and in "Representing Representation VI," at the Arnot Museum.

Watwood also does portrait commissions. Her recent projects include a portrait of the astronomer Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin for the Faculty Hall at Harvard University, and the journalist and anti-lynching campaigner Ida B. Wells for the Kennedy School of Government. She has also painted the former Mayor of St. Louis, Clarence Harmon, for the St. Louis City Hall.

In addition to her paintings, Watwood has been an instructor at the Water Street Atelier in DUMBO, Brooklyn. She also lectures at the annual Portrait Society of America Conferences.

In April 2004, Watwood joined 13 other young representational painters on a painting excursion to the Forbes Family's Old Battersea residence in London. American Artist Magazine and Mr. Christopher Forbes hosted the trip.

Watwood and her husband and two daughters live in Brooklyn, New York.