Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Northeaster, 1895; reworked by 1901
Oil on canvas
34 1/2 x 50 in. (87.6 x 127 cm)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
On the Maine coast, a “nor’easter” is a storm of exceptional violence and duration. When Homer first showed this canvas in 1895, it included two men in foul-weather gear crouching on the rocks below a smaller column of spray. Even though the painting was well received and purchased by a leading collector of American art—George Hearn, who later donated it to the Metropolitan Museum—Homer reworked it to powerful effect. More on this painting
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Dad's Coming!, c. 1873
Oil on wood
22.9 x 34.9 cm (9 x 13 3/4 in.)
31.4 x 43.2 x 5.1 cm (12 3/8 x 17 x 2 in.)
National Gallery of Art
Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator. He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium. He also worked extensively in watercolor, creating a fluid and prolific oeuvre, primarily chronicling his working vacations.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
A Light on the Sea, c. 1897
Oil on canvas
71.6 × 122.2 cm (28 3/16 × 48 1/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art
A woman walks along a rocky shoreline, a fishing net with buoys slung over her shoulder. Light gleams on the water behind her while a gull glides in the air above to the right. Details can be identified. The site is demonstrably Prout's Neck, Maine, where Homer had made his home since 1884, looking southward across Saco Bay; the rocks are ones he often fished from. The model was a local woman named Ida Meserve Harding, who had earlier posed for him. Yet such factual details do little to elucidate the picture. More on this painting
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1836. His mother was a gifted amateur watercolorist and Homer's first teacher. Homer had a happy childhood. His art talent was evident in his early years.
Homer's father was a volatile, restless businessman who was always looking to "make a killing". When Homer was thirteen, Charles gave up the hardware store business to seek a fortune in the California gold rush. When that failed, Charles left his family and went to Europe to raise capital for other get-rich-quick schemes that did not pay off.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
The Water Fan, circa 1898-1899
Watercolor, with blotting and touches of scraping, over graphite, on thick, rough twill-textured, ivory wove paper
Height: 37.4 cm (14.7 in); Width: 53.4 cm (21 in)
Art Institute of Chicago
After Homer's high school graduation Homer apprenticed at the age of 19 to J. H. Bufford, a Boston commercial lithographer. He worked repetitively on sheet music covers and other commercial work for two years. By 1857, his freelance career was underway after he turned down an offer to join the staff of Harper's Weekly.
Homer's career as an illustrator lasted nearly twenty years. His early works, mostly commercial wood engravings of urban and country social scenes.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
After the Hurricane, Bahamas, c. 1899
Medium
Transparent watercolor, with touches of opaque watercolor, rewetting, blotting and scraping, over graphite, on moderately thick, moderately textured, ivory wove paper
380 × 543 mm
Art Institute of Chicago
This watercolor was painted during Homer’s second trip to the Bahamas in the winter of 1898–99. Depicting a luckless man washed up on the beach, surrounded by fragments of his shattered craft, the work demonstrates the artist’s fascination with the rapid and dangerous weather changes of the region. Here sunlight glints through gradually thinning storm clouds. Homer employed thickly applied opaque red and yellow pigments for the seaweed tossed on the sand, creating a contrast with the thin washes and fluid brushstrokes that he used to render the receding waves. More on this painting
Before moving to New York in 1859, Homer lived in Belmont, Massachusetts with his family. His uncle's Belmont mansion, the 1853 Homer House, was the inspiration for a number of his early illustrations and paintings.
In 1859, he opened a studio in New York City. Until 1863, he attended classes at the National Academy of Design, and studied briefly with Frédéric Rondel. In only about a year of self-training, Homer was producing excellent oil work. His mother tried to raise family funds to send him to Europe for further study but instead Harper's sent Homer to the front lines of the American Civil War (1861–1865). His initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of Major General George B. McClellan, at the banks of the Potomac River in October 1861.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Sharpshooter, c. 1863
Oil on canvas
Height: 12.2 in (31.1 cm); Width: 16.5 in (41.9 cm)
Portland Museum of Art
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Home Sweet Home, circa 1863
Oil on canvas
Height: 54.6 cm (21.4 in); Width: 41.9 cm (16.4 in)
National Gallery of Art
Two union soldiers (infantrymen, as the insignia on their caps show) listen as the regimental band plays "Home, Sweet Home." In what might almost be a description of Homer's painting, and of the kind of experience Homer himself must have had when he visited the front in 1861 and 1862. More on this painting
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Prisoners from the Front, c. 1866
Oil on canvas
Height: 61 cm (24 in); Width: 96.5 cm (37.9 in)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Homer also illustrated women during wartime, and showed the effects of the war on the home front. The war work was dangerous and exhausting. He set to work on a series of war-related paintings based on his sketches, among them Sharpshooter on Picket Duty (1862) (See above), Home, Sweet Home (1863) (See above), and Prisoners from the Front (1866) (See above). He was consequently elected an Associate Academician, then a full Academician in 1865. During this time, he also continued to sell his illustrations to periodicals.
After the war, Homer turned his attention primarily to scenes of childhood and young women, reflecting nostalgia for simpler times, both his own and the nation as a whole.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
A Visit from the Old Mistress, c. 1876
Oil on canvas
Height: 45.7 cm (17.9 in); Width: 61 cm (24 in)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
His oil painting A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876) (See above) shows an encounter between a group of four freed slaves and their former mistress. The formal equivalence between the standing figures suggests the balance that the nation hoped to find in the difficult years of Reconstruction.
Before exhibiting at the National Academy of Design, Homer finally traveled to Paris, France in 1867 where he remained for a year. His most praised early painting, Prisoners from the Front, was on exhibit at the Exposition Universelle in Paris at the same time.
Though his interest in depicting natural light parallels that of the early impressionists, there is no evidence of direct influence as he was already a plein-air painter in America and had already evolved a personal style which was much closer to Manet than Monet.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
The Country School, c. 1871
Oil on canvas
Height: 54 cm (21.2 in); Width: 97.2 cm (38.2 in)
Saint Louis Art Museum
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Old Mill (The Morning Bell), c. 1871
Oil on canvas
Height: 61 cm (24 in); Width: 96.8 cm (38.1 in)
Yale University Art Gallery
Throughout the 1870s, Homer continued painting mostly rural or idyllic scenes of farm life, children playing, and young adults courting, including Country School (1871) (See above) and The Morning Bell (1872) (See above). In 1875, Homer quit working as a commercial illustrator and vowed to survive on his paintings and watercolors alone.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), between 1873 and 1876
Oil on canvas
Height: 61.5 cm (24.2 in); Width: 97 cm (38.1 in)
National Gallery of Art
His popular 1872 painting Snap-the-Whip was exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as was one of his finest and most famous paintings Breezing Up (1876) (See above).
Homer became reclusive in the late 1870s, no longer enjoying urban social life and living instead in Gloucester. In re-establishing his love of the sea, Homer found a rich source of themes while closely observing the fishermen, the sea, and the marine weather. After 1880, he rarely featured genteel women at leisure, focusing instead on working women.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Four Fishwives, c. 1881
Watercolor on paper
Height: 45,7 cm; Width: 71,1 cm
Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College
Life in fishing communities was centred on when the boats came in: the return of the men and boys, hopefully with large and valuable catches which could be sold to pay the bills and feed the family. Just as the women were responsible for watching for the return of the boats, so they knew that they had arduous work to do when they did come in.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Beach Scene, Cullercoats, c. 1881
Watercolor over graphite on cream-colored wove paper
Height: 29.1 cm (11.4 in); Width: 49.5 cm (19.4 in)
Clark Art Institute
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Fisher Girls on the Beach, Cullercoats, c. 1881
Watercolor
Height: 33.4 cm; Width: 49.3 cm
Brooklyn Museum, New York,
Fisher Girls on the Beach, Cullercoats (1881) shows the arrival in progress, the earliest of the cobles being surrounded by their families, but the two fishwives in the foreground still waiting for their boat to come in. Although the boats were usually kept in and around the small harbour, when conditions allowed they would normally be sailed onto the beach, to allow better access to remove the catch and carry out maintenance. More on this painting
Homer spent two years (1881–1882) in the English coastal village of Cullercoats, Northumberland. Many of the paintings at Cullercoats took as their subjects working men and women and their daily heroism, imbued with a solidity and sobriety which was new to Homer's art, presaging the direction of his future work. His works from this period are almost exclusively watercolors.
His palette became constrained and sober; his paintings larger, more ambitious, and more deliberately conceived and executed. His subjects more universal and less nationalistic, more heroic by virtue of his unsentimental rendering. Homer found a new style and vision which carried his talent into new realms.
Back in the U.S. in November 1882, Homer showed his English watercolors in New York. Critics noticed the change in style at once, Homer's women were no longer "dolls who flaunt their millinery" but "sturdy, fearless, fit wives and mothers of men" who are fully capable of enduring the forces and vagaries of nature alongside their men.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Undertow, c. 1886
Oil on canvas
Height: 75.7 cm (29.8 in); Width: 121 cm (47.6 in)
Clark Art Institute
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Eight Bells, c. 1886
Oil on canvas
Height: 64 cm (25.1 in); Width: 76.7 cm (30.1 in)
Addison Gallery of American Art
A ship's bell is a bell on a ship that is used for the indication of time as well as other traditional functions. The bell itself is usually made of brass or bronze, and normally has the ship's name engraved or cast on it.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
The Gulf Stream, c. 1899
Oil on canvas
Height: 71.4 cm (28.1 in); Width: 124.8 cm (49.1 in)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Rum Cay, between 1898 and 1899
Watercolor over graphite on wove paper
Height: 38.2 cm (15 in); Width: 54.8 cm (21.5 in)
Worcester Art Museum
Rum Cay is an island and district of the Bahamas. It has many rolling hills that rise to about 120 feet (37 m).
The island is believed to have acquired its name from a shipwrecked cargo of rum.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Mending the Nets, c. 1881
Watercolor and gouache over graphite on paper
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
In 1883, Homer moved to Prouts Neck, Maine (in Scarborough), and lived at his family's estate in the remodeled carriage house seventy-five feet from the ocean. During the rest of the mid-1880s, Homer painted his monumental sea scenes. In Undertow (1886), depicting the dramatic rescue of two female bathers by two male lifeguards (See above). In Eight Bells (1886), two sailors carefully take their bearings on deck (See above). Other notable paintings among these dramatic struggle-with-nature images are Banks Fisherman, The Gulf Stream (See above), Rum Cay (See above), Mending the Nets (See above), and Searchlight on Harbor Entrance, Santiago de Cuba (See below). Some of these he repeated as etchings.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Searchlight on Harbor Entrance, Santiago de Cuba
Oil on canvas
30 1/2 x 50 1/2 in. (77.5 x 128.3 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
At fifty years of age, Homer had become a "Yankee Robinson Crusoe, cloistered on his art island" and "a hermit with a brush". But despite his critical recognition, Homer's work never achieved the popularity of traditional Salon pictures or of the flattering portraits by John Singer Sargent.
In these years, Homer received emotional sustenance primarily from his mother, brother Charles, and sister-in-law Martha ("Mattie"). After his mother's death, Homer became a "parent" for his aging but domineering father and Mattie became his closest female intimate.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Children Under a Palm Tree, c. 1885
Watercolor and pencil on paper
Height: 35.6 cm (14 in); Width: 50.8 cm (20 in)
Private collection
In the winters of 1884–5, Homer ventured to Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas and did a series of watercolors as part of a commission for Century Magazine. He replaced the turbulent green storm-tossed sea of Prouts Neck with the sparkling blue skies of the Caribbean and the hardy New Englanders with Black natives, further expanding his watercolor technique, subject matter, and palette. During this trip he painted Children Under a Palm Tree for Lady Blake (See above), the Governor's wife. His tropical stays inspired and refreshed him in much the same way as Paul Gauguin's trips to Tahiti.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
A Garden in Nassau, c. 1885
Watercolor and selective scraping with touches of gouache, over graphite on textured cream wove watercolor paper
Height: 36.8 cm (14.4 in); Width: 53.3 cm (20.9 in)
Art Institute of Chicago
A Garden in Nassau (1885) (See above) is one of the best examples of these watercolors. Once again, his freshness and originality were praised by critics but proved too advanced for the traditional art buyers and he "looked in vain for profits". Homer lived frugally, however, and fortunately, his affluent brother Charles provided financial help when needed.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
A Norther, c. 1886
Watercolor Over Graphite On Wove Paper
358 x 517 mm (14 1/8 x 20 3/8 in.)
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Fishing Boats, Key West, c. 1903
Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper
13 15/16 x 21 3/4 in. (35.4 x 55.2 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Few of Homer’s watercolors rival this one for its effects of simmering sunlight and steamy atmosphere, achieved through the speed of application of wet on wet washes, the broad and dexterous exploitation of the white paper reserve, and the judicious sponging of wet pigment, especially in the shadows, reflecting light off the water. This picture is also exceptional for the number and visibility of its pencil marks, not only to indicate some of the boats’ rigging but also to enliven the rustle of the sailcloth. By contrast, Homer, in masterly fashion, merely daubed in the figures freehand, sacrificing nothing of their form and weight; they even seem to speak. More on this painting
Homer frequently visited Key West, Florida between 1888 and 1903. Some of his best-known works, A Norther (See above), Key West (See above), The Gulf Stream (See above), Taking on Wet Provisions (See below), and Palms in the Storm (See below), are said to have been produced there.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Taking on Wet Provisions (Schooner Marked Newport, K. W.), c. 1903
Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper
13 7/8 x 21 3/4 in. (35.2 x 55.2 cm)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Palm Tree, Nassau, c. 1898
Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper
21 3/8 x 14 7/8 in. (54.3 x 37.8 cm)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Homer found inspiration in summer trips to the North Woods Club, near the hamlet of Minerva, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. It was on these fishing vacations that he experimented with the watercolor medium, producing works of the utmost vigor and subtlety, hymns to solitude, nature, and to outdoor life.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
The Fox Hunt, c. 1893
Oil on canvas
Height: 96.5 cm (37.9 in); Width: 174 cm (68.5 in)
Collection
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
In 1893, Homer painted one of his most famous "Darwinian" works, The Fox Hunt (See above), which depicts a flock of starving crows descending on a fox slowed by deep snow. This was Homer's largest painting, and it was immediately purchased by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, his first painting in a major American museum collection. In Huntsman and Dogs (1891) (See below), a lone, impassive hunter, with his yelping dogs at his side, heads home after a hunt with deer skins slung over his right shoulder. Another late work, The Gulf Stream (1899) (See above), shows a black sailor adrift in a damaged boat, surrounded by sharks and an impending maelstrom.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
A Huntsman and Dogs, c. 1891
Oil on canvas
Height: 71.4 cm (28.1 in); Width: 121.9 cm (47.9 in)
Philadelphia Museum of Art
By 1900, Homer finally reached financial stability, as his paintings fetched good prices from museums and he began to receive rents from real estate properties. He also became free of the responsibilities of caring for his father, who had died two years earlier. Homer continued producing excellent watercolors, mostly on trips to Canada and the Caribbean. Other late works include sporting scenes such as Right and Left, as well as seascapes absent of human figures, mostly of waves crashing against rocks in varying light. His late seascapes are especially valued for their dramatic and forceful expression of nature's powers, and for their beauty and intensity.
In his last decade, he at times followed the advice he had given a student artist in 1907: "Leave rocks for your old age—they're easy."
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Shooting the Rapids, Saguenay River, between 1905 and 1910
Oil and chalk on canvas
Height: 76.2 cm (30 in); Width: 122.6 cm (48.2 in)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Homer died in 1910 at the age of 74 in his Prouts Neck studio. His painting, Shooting the Rapids, Saguenay River (See above), remains unfinished. More on Winslow Homer
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