Watercolors

An artist sits in front of his easel painting a floral still-life set up on his studio table. The expression he wears is earnest, but also a little melancholy, as if he were contemplating anew the traditional meaning of his subject: the fleeting nature of beauty, and of life itself. Self Portrait With Flowers is one of the highlights of Raoul Middleman's show of paintings and watercolors at C. Grimaldis Gallery. Middleman's images in People and Places: recent paintings and works on paper generally have the unmistakably energetic brushstrokes and quicksilver spontaneity we've come to expect from Middleman's signature artworks.

The Woodlawn Vase Want to feel like a winner? Then check out the Woodlawn Vase, which is presented to the winner of the Preakness Stakes. It is a part of the Baltimore Museum of Art's collection of equestrian art and historic American and British horseracing trophies. The sterling silver Woodlawn Vase, which was created by Tiffany and Company and stands 34 inches tall, will be on display in the museum's gallery dedicated to the William Woodward Collection. The Woodward Collection features 52 paintings of horses and racing scenes.

Look at an ancient Greek statue missing its limbs, and you realize how fragmented the art-historical record can be. Museums do their best to collect, preserve and interpret the treasures of the past, and visitors likewise aim to make sense of it all. An especially savvy visitor, such as Baltimore artist Scott Ponemone, is able to appreciate the objects for their aesthetic appeal as well as whatever stories they may hold. Ponemone's exhibit of watercolors at the Highlandtown gallery, Schiavone Edward Contemporary Art, is about the museum-going experience, specifically that of viewing the Egyptian, Greek and Roman and medieval art objects at the Walters Art Museum.

Annapolis artist Ginger M. Doyel gazed into the past and conjured up the capital city on a snowy December day in 1904. The 24-year-old illustrator's pencil and watercolor landscape - depicting horses on snow-coated streets, spires looming over small shops and a humble oyster shed alongside ice skaters on frozen creeks - is the centerpiece of about 750 cards sent by City Hall inviting the public to an annual December open house. "We thought it would be fun to have a nice look at the past to share and make connections to the city you live in," said Annapolis Mayor Ellen O. Moyer, who each year selects a local artist to design the city's holiday card.

Hazel E. Awalt, a homemaker who painted watercolors, died in her sleep of an apparent heart attack Aug. 27 at her Roland Park home. She was 79. Born Hazel Elizabeth Clary in Baltimore and raised in Hampden, she was a 1942 Eastern High School graduate. As a young woman she performed in ballet and tap dance recitals. Many years ago she was a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. secretary. Mrs. Awalt was a member of the Woman's Club of Roland Park and the Baltimore Country Club. She painted watercolors in her spare time.

Helen Louise Gambrill, a retired Social Security Administration worker and artist, died of kidney failure Thursday at Angel's Alert, a Columbia assisted-living facility. The Baltimore resident was 90. She was born Helen Louise Waters in Baltimore and was reared on Carey Street. She was a 1930 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School and the Apex Beauty School. She worked for several years as a cosmetologist and receptionist in a physician's office before going to work in 1942 for the SSA as a file clerk.

Even in the anything-goes era after postmodernism, the joyfully over-the-top paintings of Spanish artist Luis Perez Espinosa seem slightly subversive. They're like a Mario Testino fashion shot of a beautiful girl on the beach at Monaco hung next to one of those spooky Joel Peter Witkin tableaux of rotting fruit and severed human heads - I mean, they're just too much fun, too puppy-dog playful, too obviously fabricated for the pure pleasure of the eye to be really seriously serious. Which is just fine with Espinosa, whose whimsically innocent pink, blue, lime-green and orange-sherbet landscapes are making their American debut this month at Gallery International (the opening reception is tonight from 6 to 8)

Over the course of a 40-year professional career he has been a musician, composer, conductor, educator and nationally renowned arts administrator. But now the founding director of the Baltimore School for the Arts, who retired in 1996 after leading the school through its first 16 years of existence, is debuting in an entirely new role: David Simon, American realist painter. Today, the latest career evolution of the 78-year-old musician-turned-painter will be celebrated at the Baltimore School for the Arts with an opening reception for a benefit exhibition of more than 80 of Simon's realistic oil paintings and watercolors.

Richard H. Morton, an award-winning artist who worked primarily in watercolors, died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Aberdeen. He was 81 and had emphysema. Born in Dallas, Mr. Morton served in the Army during World War II and then studied art at the Pratt Institute in New York City. He taught art at several universities in the Southwest as well as in Mexico, and had his own art school in Oklahoma. He went on to work as a civilian graphic artist for the Army in Oklahoma before being transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1980.