Scott Ponemone
Born: 1949
Education: BA, Amherst College 1971; MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art, 1979
Media: watercolor, wood engraving
Honors Status: Signature member of the Transparent Watercolor Society of America since 2024; Signature Member of National Watercolor Society since 2020; Signature Member of The Watercolor U.S.A. Honor Society since 1990; Signature Member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society since 2021
Exhibitions: Two dozen one-person shows since 1980 including shows in New York, Washington, Baltimore, Miami, Richmond, Key West and Annapolis.
Museum, University and Public Collections: Baltimore Museum of Art, City of Baltimore, Museum of the City of New York, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, U.S. Naval Academy, Maryland Historical Society, and the Johns Hopkins University.
Awards: Maryland Individual Artist Award, Maryland State Arts Council: 1989, 2019; 4th Biennial Maryland Regional Juried Art Exhibition (2019), University of Maryland Global Campus: President’s Best of Show Award; both monetary and merchandise awards from National Watercolor Society’s 100th International Open Exhibition; Zoltan Szabo Founders Award by the Transparent Watercolor Society of America
Fellowships and Residencies: Green Olive Arts, Tetouan, Morocco; PECAH (Programme of Exchange in Culture and Art of Himalayas), Uttarakhand, India; The Studios of Key West, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Colony, Chateau at Rochefort en Terre, France (MICA), Hungarian Multicultural Center, School 33 Art Center, and Maryland Art Place.
Blogger: The ART I SEE blog on this website allows me to meet and present the work of 20th-century and contemporary printmakers, as well as discuss other artistic efforts that excite me. The ART I MAKE gets me the chance to discuss my own art making. A complete listing of both blogs can be found on my Blog Index page.
Volunteer work: Member of an accessions committee for the Baltimore Museum of Art; Director of the Mount Vernon/Belvedere Association and Chair of its Architectural Review Committee; former longtime Editor of the Newsletter for the Print, Drawing & Photography Society of the Baltimore Museum of Art;
Artist Statement
Over a 35-year career, I have explored people in public spaces and events (from standing in line, playing at the beach, at museum openings, intermission at the opera, on the Mall in Washington, to marchers in parades), metamorphosed pieces of cultural heritage to create entirely new images (including architecture and decorative arts of historic Baltimore, the Walters Art Museum’s collection of ancient and medieval art, and architectural and arts of Brittany, Hungary, Greece, and Italy), and painted skies from memory (begun while in residency in France).
For the past few years I’ve concentrated on the human hand, first as the conveyor of language and ideas – for instance sign language – then as a symbol of daily human actions and interactions.
This work involving hands was inspired by an incident nearly 10 years ago when I visited a museum in Palermo, Sicily, and didn’t know what drawings to make while there. As I left, I literally said, “It’s the hands, stupid.” In medieval and Renaissance paintings oftentimes artists employed hands as directionals telling the viewer where to look or who was naughty and who was nice. So I went back the next day and just drew hands. Back in Baltimore I created a painting of assembled Palermo hands in an architectural framework. This was during the period when I was assembling fragments of historic artwork into new wholes.
The first hand paintings involved sign-language hands spelling out messages while positioned in a network of historic artifacts, for instance Roman mosaics. Then I added hands shaped as if creating shadow puppets, followed by hands forming Italian hand gestures. The latter were often placed within 18th-century New England tombstones.
In later hands paintings, I’ve often stripped away almost eveything save the hands and what the hands are holding. This created images that are intimate yet metaphorical, commonplace yet surreal. The wood engravings – a medium I begun in 2011 – further reduce the imagery to a few white lines. In the most recent hands painting, I’ve often stripped away almost eveything save the hands and what the hands are holding.This created images that are intimate yet metaphorical, commonplace yet surreal. The wood engravings – a medium I begun in 2011 – further reduce the imagery to a few white lines.
Finally (and it may well be the last variation), I’ve expanded to include whole arms and call this group Up In Arms. By asking folks to hold something important to them above their heads, I let them celebrate something about themselves–whether it’s a fish they caught, pigs they raise or dogs they walk. Click here to go to this portfolio.
After several decades’ absence, my paintings beginning in the fall 2017 once again focus on the whole person. Blame this on coming across watercolors I did in 1983 that seemed to impress me with how people react to having a camera pointed on them. I discuss this retro look of mine in a December, 2017, blog post: Sidewalk Studio: Deja Vu.
I called this series 2 by 2. The major differences between these and the 1980s paintings are: 1) I now ask permission to photograph my “models” and 2) the new paintings omit backgrounds. This allows the persons depicted to escape the rectangle of traditional paintings and make more vigorous eye contact with the viewer. Here is a link to a portfolio of these paintings.
The wearing of masks during the 2020 COVID-19 plague dramatically changed how people looked when they left their homes. So I adjusted my 2 by 2 series accordingly. I called these new paintings Pandemic Pairs. Here is a link to those paintings.
Since 2022 I’ve devoted more and more time to printmaking. While my MFA from MICA was in printmaking, I essentially halted production after the early 1980s until 2011 when I took a wood engraving class at MICA. The most recent work has been in hand-colored linocuts. 
Since 2022 I’ve devoted more and more time to printmaking. While my MFA from MICA was in printmaking, I essentially halted production after the early 1980s until 2011 when I took a wood engraving class at MICA. The most recent work has been in hand-colored linocuts.
Resume in brief
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2023 “Gun to Gardens,” First & Franklin Presbyterian Church’s Reid Memorial Chapel
2022 “Planets,” Gallery Blue Door, Baltimore
2021 “2 by 2,” The Studios of Key West (April)
2019 “2 by 2: Portraits of America,” Hancock Solar Gallery, Baltimore
2018 Green Olive Arts, Tétouan, Morocco
2017 “Up in Arms,” Harford County Community College
2015 Jordan Faye Contemporary, Baltimore, MD
2013 “Divine Fantasy,” Jordan Faye Contemporary, Baltimore, MD
2012 Jordan Faye Contemporary, Baltimore, MD
2008 Heineman Myers Contemporary Art, Bethesda, MD
2005 Schiavone Contemporary Art, Baltimore
2001 Everygreen and Homewood house, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
1997 Gallery K, Washington, DC
1992 Cudahy’s Fine Arts Gallery, Richmond, VA
1992 Gallery K, Washington
1991 U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD
1990 Gallery K, Washington, DC
1988 Litteljohn-Smith Gallery, New York, NY
1988 Gallery K, Washington
1987 OK South, South Miami, FL
1986 Litteljohn-Smith Gallery, New York
1986 G.H. Dalsheimer Gallery, Baltimore
1985 Gallery K, Washington
1985 Benjamin Mangel Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1984 Gallery K, Washington
1980 B.R. Kornblatt Gallery, Baltimore
Museum & Traveling Exhibitions
2020-23 Wood Engravers Network: Fourth Triennial Exhibition, began as a virtual show but will travel through 2022
2013 81st Annual Cumberland Valley Artists Exhibition, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD
2013 2nd Biennial Maryland Regional Juried Art Exhibition, University of Maryland University College, College Park, MD
2012-13 Wood Engravers’ Network traveling exhibition, starting in Asheville, NC
2001 Alumni Exhibit, Meade Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, MA
1991 Watercolor USA, Watercolor USA Honor Society, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO
1989 At the Water’s Edge: 19th and 20th Century American Beach Scene, Tampa Art Museum, Tampa, FL
1989 Art and the Law, 14th Annual West Publishing Co. traveling exhibition
1989 Watercolor USA, Watercolor USA Honor Society, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO
Recent Group Exhibitions
2024 Baltimore Watercolor Society’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Exhibition.
2024 48th Annual Juried Exhibition of the Transparent Watercolor Society of American, Kenosha Public Museum, Kenosha, WI
2023 47th Annual Juried Exhibition of the Transparent Watercolor Society of American, Kenosha Public Museum, Kenosha, WI
2023 62nd exhibition of Watercolor USA, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO
2022 46th Annual Juried Exhibition of the Transparent Watercolor Society of American, Kenosha Public Museum, Kenosha, WI
2021 Bethesda Painting Awards exhibition of finalists, Gallery B, Bethesda, MD
2021 Baltimore Watercolor Society’s online Mid-Atlantic Regional Exhibition.
2021 National Watercolor Society’s members’ online exhibition.
2020 Bethesda Painting Awards exhibition of finalists, Gallery B, Bethesda, MD
2020 National Watercolor Society’s 100th International Open Exhibition, online in 2020
2019 4th Biennial Maryland Regional Juried Art Exhibition (2019), University of Maryland Global Campus
2019 Where Have We Been, Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson University, Towson, MD
2018 Extravagant Visions, Extraordinary Imaginings, Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson University, Towson, MD
2015 H2O, Watercolor, the Transparent Medium at the Columbia [MD] Art Center
2014 For Whom It Stands, TOO at the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House & Museum, Baltimore. Curated by the Reginald F. Lewis Museum.
2014 35-33-35, celebrating the 35th anniversary of School 33 Art Center, Baltimore
2014 Tropical Winter, Key West Pottery, Key West, KL
Public Collections
Baltimore Museum of Art
City of Baltimore
Smithsonian Museum of American Art
U.S. Naval Academy, Beverly R. Robinson Collection
Museum of the City of New York
Maryland Center for History and Culture (formerly Maryland Historical Society)
Fellowships, Residencies & Awards
2022 Zoltan Szabo Founders Award by the Transparent Watercolor Society of America
2021 Autumn residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA
2021 Awarded Signature status by the National Watercolor Society, authorized to NWS after signature
2020 Both monetary and merchandise awards from National Watercolor Society’s 100th International Open Exhibition
2020 Painting “M & P, First Pandemic Pair” featured on the cover of the October edition of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine
2019 President’s Best In Show Award, 2019 4th Biennial Maryland Regional Juried Art Exhibition, University of Maryland Global Campus
2019 Individual Artist Award, Maryland State Arts Council
2018 Green Olive Arts, Tétouan, Morocco
2016 PECAH (Programme of Exchange in Culture and Art of Himalayas), Uttarakhand, India
2013 The Studios of Key West, Key West, FL
2010 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Briar, VA
2007 Chateau Rochefort en Terre, Morbihan, France, via Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore
2005 Hungarian Multicultural Center, Balatonfured, Hungary
1997 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
1990 The Exhibition Award, 1990 Adirondacks National Exhibition of American Watercolors
1990 The Watercolor U.S.A. Honor Society’s Certificate of Merit, authorized to use WHS after signature
1990 Vermont Studio Colony, Johnson, VT
1989, 1990, 1991 School 33 Art Center, Baltimore
1989 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
1989 Individual Artist Award, Maryland State Arts Council
1976 The Hutzler Fund, Inc. Award, The 1976 Maryland Biennial Exhibition