“Like Fred McDowell, the Mississippi blues singer...Ted Rose has ‘been callin’ that train’ all his life: first in his thoughts, then by direct experience of the railroads, and finally in his paintings.”
Ted Rose | 1940-2002
Ted Rose is known as one of America's foremost artists. Working in watercolor, he is best remembered for his paintings of twentieth century landscapes and railroad scenes. His passion and depiction of and for transcendental America, the blues, unions, democracy land and light, define his work in photography, watercolor, and monotypes. He was a signature member of the American Watercolor Society, the National Watercolor Society, and many other societies.
Ted Rose’s work is among other rare American realists in private collections, museums throughout the US, including the Haggerty Museum, Marquette University, Sacramento Railway Museum, with the Lexington Group of Transportation and History. The Center for Railroad Photography and Art also house and have curated his over 4000 photographs of stream in North and South America from their permanent collection.
Celebrated and published in books, periodicals, and featured as distinguished artist in his genre with numerous awards throughout his brief career, Ted also wrote created and shared articles and presentations on the intersections of art and history throughout the US. In ’99 The US Postal service invited him to create the five paintings for the stamp series “All Aboard”.
His book, In the Traces: Railroad Paintings of Ted Rose, was published by Indiana University Press in 2000. The artist lived and worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico.