Tony Foster: Watercolour Diaries from the Green River

Exhibition open October 26, 2024 – May 4, 2025

Artist Tony Foster became fascinated with the 50-million-year-old Green River fossilized fish when he first saw them in 1985. It was from these small special objects that he comprised the idea to make a group of artworks about the Green River. He began his project in 2018, creating a major painting of Steamboat Rock and the horseshoe bend from his vantage point up a 400 foot cliff. In the summer of 2019 he took a rafting trip from the Gates of Lodore to Split Rock, creating five smaller paintings en route. From these initial works he created this exhibition about, in Foster’s words: “this magnificent river.”

The Green River is a major tributary of the Colorado River and runs through the states of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. Beginning in the Wind River Mountains, the Green River holds a special spot in the hearts of those living near the Colorado Plateau, where the river has carved a breathtaking landscape of canyons that have lush covering of greenery at their base. Foster’s watercolor paintings, with notes, diaries, maps, and symbolic objects captures the majesty of this local landscape from its geological prehistory to the story of Native American and Western Settlement.

Organized by The Foster Museum, Palo Alto, CA.