Series 1 - Museum design

James Herbert (Herb) Watson was born 5 December 1934 in Ontario. He studied Science at Waterloo College and Fine Arts at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto. In 1960, he spent one year at the Kokoschka International Academy of Vision in Salzburg, Austria.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Herb Watson worked as an exhibition designer in a number of museum environments: the Vancouver Maritime Museum and Vancouver City Museum, 1966; the Vancouver Centennial Museum, 1969; the Maritime and City Museums, 1970-1977. In 1977, he took a one year visiting appointment at the Museum Of Anthropology (hereafter MOA). In 1978, he became Exhibit Designer at MOA.

While at MOA, Herb Watson designed over sixty exhibitions, ten of which traveled across Canada and many of which involved studen
t trainees. He regularly taught exhibit design to studen ts in a UBC introductory museum course and supervised the design and installation of annual studen t exhibitions. He was frequently invited to give lectures and workshops at other universities and museum associations.

From 1985-90, Herb Watson managed a contract to research design and install the South Pacific Pavilion at Expo '86. His role included representing eight South Seas nations and travelling to the South Pacific to acquire artifacts. Between 1988 and 1990, Herb Watson designed the west wing extension of MOA that would house the Koerner Ceramics Collection. Herb Watson retired from MOA 28 February 28 1991.