The "Old Plantation" is a watercolor folk painting from the 18th century that depicts a group of slaves around the quarters listening to music, dancing and enjoying themselves. The painting has been attributed to John Rose, a South Carolina slaveholder. The painting is notable because it not only portrays slaves as its subject, but puts them in their own setting and highlights their music. The painting is owned by the Colonial Williamsburg collection.
Mary Ann Willson was a folk watercolor painter who worked during the early 1800s, but her works went undiscovered until 1943. A New York gallery uncovered a portfolio of her work and she began to be placed in collections of early American watercolor artists. The National Gallery of Art holds a series of her watercolors retelling the parable of the Prodigal Son from the New Testament. Willson used unusual materials, including berry juice, for her watercolors, which she drew from popular prints of her day.
Henry Darger was an unknown outsider artist until his death in 1973, when hundreds of watercolor paintings were discovered in his apartment along with a 15,000-page novel. The paintings combined collage, watercolors and pencils, telling the complex story of seven sisters who, according to an article in the Huffington Post, "princesses of the Christian nation of Abbieannia who lead a child slave revolt against the evil Glandelinians." The discovery of Darger's work was the subject of a documentary in 2005.
Charles Dellschau, like Henry Darger, had his expansive watercolor folk art discovered after his death. Dellschau died in 1923, but it wasn't until the 1960s that his watercolor notebooks were discovered, depicting a fictional world of airplanes and flying enthusiasts who belonged to the Sonora Aero Club. The works were put on display in the 1970s and some of the scrapbooks were purchased by the San Antonio Museum Association.