Kenneth Potter

George Kenneth Potter, a third generation Californian and one of the premier California Style watercolor painters, has passed away at age 85 from lung cancer. His professional career as a fine art watercolor painter, muralist, teacher and printmaker spanned six decades from 1949. Potter’s work has received, and continues to receive, international interest from art collectors in many major cities throughout the world including San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Sacramento, Basel, London, and Rio de Janeiro.

Growing up in the 1930s, Potter loved to create art and was known as “the kid who can draw”. During the Great Depression, he improved his artistic skills using pencils and crayons to draw on pieces of cut up cardboard boxes his mother provided. While attending high school in Sacramento, he was introduced to watercolor painting by an art teacher and took additional instruction at a WPA sponsored art program.

As a Boy Scout and a Sea Scout he achieved the highest rank of Eagle Scout and Quartermaster respectively. In high school he enrolled in an ROTC program, joining the Marine Corps upon graduation. He served on active duty during World War Two as an anti-aircraft gunner in the Pacific Theater and, as part of Task Force 31 and dress guard to Rear Admiral Badger, was on the U.S.S. San Diego as it sailed into Tokyo Bay.

Shortly after returning from military service Potter began studying art on the G.I. Bill. He received instruction from art schools in San Francisco, Paris and Florence. He exhibited art and painted murals while studying in Europe during the early 1950s and it was during this time that he studied Cubism under Jean Metzinger.

By the 1960s Potter was well established as one of the premier California Style watercolor artists of his generation. This group of painters from the West Coast gained national and international attention for using watercolors as a broad brush painting medium. Little or no pencil line was put down before painting, resulting in colorful and spontaneously produced works. Potter favored large format paintings, created outdoors and on location as he viewed the subject matter.

Throughout his career Potter’s watercolors were exhibited in many museums and received a number of prestigious awards. He was an active member of the American Watercolor Society, Society of Western Artists, Marin Society of Artists, and was a former president of the West Coast Watercolor Society. His works have been featured in several books on California watercolor painting including The California Style published in 1985 and California Watercolors (1850-1970) published in 2002. Since the 1960s a listing of his major awards and professional information has been printed in Who’s Who in American Art.

As an art instructor he taught at San Francisco State University, at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, and at watercolor workshops in California, Florida, Hawaii and other parts of the world. In the 1980s he traveled throughout America doing watercolor demonstrations as an artist representative for the Grumbacher art supply company.

Potter was also an avid cyclist. In the early 1960s, while living in Corte Madera, he founded the Marin Cyclists Club and served as their first president, later becoming a member of the Sacramento Wheelmen. At age 75, he and a group of friends cycled across America with no motorized support while camping along the way.

Ken Potter was married three times and is survived by all four of his daughters. Helen Pessoa of Brazil is a daughter from Potter’s first marriage to Barbara Heliodora Carneiro de Mendonca. Katherine, Claire and Cynthia are from his third marriage to Ruth Mary Griffen.