Ernest W. Watson (1884-1969) was born in Conway, Massachusetts on January 14, 1884. He graduated from the Massachusetts Normal School of Art in 1906, and received his teacher education degree the following year from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Watson was a painter, illustrator, instructor, author, and printmaker who specialized in drawing, watercolor, and color linoleum cuts.

In 1915, Watson co-founded the Berkshire Summer School of Art in Monterey, Massachusetts where he remained active in teaching summer sessions until 1927. He was a member of the Prairie Print Makers and the Rochester Print Club. Besides serving as editor of American Artist, Watson authored instructional books including Art of Pencil Drawing, Composition in Landscape and Still Life, Creative Perspective for Artists and Illustrators, Linoleum Block Printing, Color and Method in Painting, and Ernest W. Watson's Sketch Diary.

Watson received that Gari Melchers Memorial Medal from the Artist's Fellowship in 1959 and was awarded a scholarship to the Huntington Hartford Foundation in 1962. His work is represented in the collections of the Library of Congress, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, New York Public Library, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, and the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester.

Ernest W. Watson died on January 23, 1969, in New Rochelle, New York.