• Watrous studied art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he later taught art history and spearheaded the campaign to build the Elvehjem Museum of Art (now the Chazen Museum of Art).

• Watrous was a noted muralist. Examples of his work includes twelve mural panels in the Paul Bunyan Room of the university’s student union and Lumberjack Fight on the Flambeau River in the post office of Park Falls, Wisconsin.

• Watrous received two Guggenheim Fellowships. The first to study in Paris with surrealist printmaker Stanley William Hayter, the second to travel to Mexico to work with muralist Diego Rivera.

• As an art historian, Watrous published several books, including The Craft of Old-Master Drawings (1967) and A Century of American Printmaking, 1880-1890 (1984).