Ernest William Watson, artist and author, graduated from Massachusetts College of Art in 1906. He received an art teacher degree at Pratt Institute in New York where he taught until 1929. He co-founded the Berkshire Summer School of Art, which existed until 1936, at a hilltop farm in Monterey, Massachusetts. In 1931 Watson became art editor of Scholastic Magazine. He co-founded Watson-Guptill Publishing & American Artist Magazine, of which he was educator in chief, and published a number of art education books.