Winslow Homer: Difference between revisions
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| name = Winslow Homer |
| name = Winslow Homer |
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| image = Winslow Homer by Sarony.jpeg |
| image = Winslow Homer by Sarony.jpeg |
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| caption = |
| caption = Homer in 1880 |
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| birth_name = Winslow Homer |
| birth_name = Winslow Homer |
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1836|02|24}} |
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1836|02|24}} |
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| birth_place = [[Boston, Massachusetts]], |
| birth_place = [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]], U.S. |
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| death_date = {{Death date|1910|09|29}}<br />(aged 74) |
| death_date = {{Death date|1910|09|29}}<br />(aged 74) |
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| death_place = [[Prouts Neck, Maine]], |
| death_place = [[Prouts Neck, Maine]], U.S. |
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| known_for = [[Drawing]]<br />[[Wood engraving]]<br />[[Oil painting]]<br />[[Watercolor painting]] |
| known_for = [[Drawing]]<br />[[Wood engraving]]<br />[[Oil painting]]<br />[[Watercolor painting]] |
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| training = [[Lithography]] [[apprenticeship]], 1855–56<br />''[[National Academy of Design]]'' (painting), 1863<br />[[Paris |
| training = [[Lithography]] [[apprenticeship]], 1855–56<br />''[[National Academy of Design]]'' (painting), 1863<br />[[Paris]] (informal), 1867 |
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| movement = [[Realism (visual arts)|Realism]], [[American Realism]] |
| movement = [[Realism (visual arts)|Realism]], [[American Realism]] |
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| notable_works = ''[[Harper's Weekly|Harper's Weekly Magazine]]''<br />''[[Ballou's Pictorial|Ballou's Pictorial Magazine]]'' |
| notable_works = ''[[Harper's Weekly|Harper's Weekly Magazine]]''<br />''[[Ballou's Pictorial|Ballou's Pictorial Magazine]]''<br />''[[Snap the Whip]]''<br />''[[The Veteran in a New Field]]''<br />''[[Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)]]'' |
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| patrons = |
| patrons = |
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| awards = |
| awards = |
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}} |
}} |
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'''Winslow Homer''' (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American [[landscape painter]] and [[illustrator]], best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters |
'''Winslow Homer''' (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American [[landscape painter]] and [[illustrator]], best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters of 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art in general. |
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Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial [[illustrator]].<ref>Poole, Robert M. [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/depths-homer.html Hidden Depths]. ''[[Smithsonian Magazine]]''. April 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2008.</ref> 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.<ref>Cooper, Helen A., ''Winslow Homer Watercolors'', p. 16. Yale University Press, 1986.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hoeber |first=Arthur |author-link= Arthur Hoeber|date=February 1911 |title=Winslow Homer, A Painter of the Sea |journal=[[World's Work|The World's Work: A History of Our Time]] |volume=XXI |pages=14009–14017 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Zm0AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA14009|access-date=July 10, 2009 }}</ref> |
Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial [[illustrator]].<ref>Poole, Robert M. [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/depths-homer.html Hidden Depths]. ''[[Smithsonian Magazine]]''. April 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2008.</ref> 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.<ref>Cooper, Helen A., ''Winslow Homer Watercolors'', p. 16. Yale University Press, 1986.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hoeber |first=Arthur |author-link= Arthur Hoeber|date=February 1911 |title=Winslow Homer, A Painter of the Sea |journal=[[World's Work|The World's Work: A History of Our Time]] |volume=XXI |pages=14009–14017 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Zm0AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA14009|access-date=July 10, 2009 }}</ref> |
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==Early life== |
==Early life== |
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[[File:Winslow Homer |
[[File:Joseph E. Baker - Portrait of Winslow Homer at the age of twenty-one (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=1|A portrait illustration of Homer at the age of 21]] |
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⚫ | Homer was born in [[Boston]], Massachusetts, on February 24, 1836, the second of three sons of Charles Savage Homer and [[Henrietta Maria Benson Homer]], both from long lines of [[New Englanders]]. His mother was a gifted amateur watercolorist and Homer's first teacher. She and her son had a close relationship throughout their lives. Homer took on many of her traits, including her quiet, strong-willed, terse, sociable nature, her dry sense of humor, and her artistic talent.<ref>Cooper, p. 16.</ref> Homer had a happy childhood, growing up mostly in then-rural [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]. He was an average student, but his art talent was evident in his early years. |
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⚫ | Homer's father was a volatile, restless businessman who was always looking to "make a killing." When Homer was 13 years old, 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.<ref>Elizabeth Johns, ''Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation'', University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002, p. 9, {{ISBN|0-520-22725-5}}.</ref> |
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⚫ | Homer's father was a volatile, restless businessman who was always looking to "make a killing." When Homer was |
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After Homer's high school graduation, his father saw a newspaper advertisement and arranged for an apprenticeship. Homer's [[apprenticeship]] at the age of 19 to [[John Henry Bufford|J. H. Bufford]], a Boston commercial [[lithography|lithographer]], was a formative but "treadmill experience".<ref>{{citation |first=Nicolai Jr. |last=Cikovsky |title=Winslow Homer |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |location=New York |year=1990 |pages=11–13 |isbn=0-8109-1193-0}}; {{citation |editor-last=Roberts |editor-first=Norma J. |title=The American Collections |publisher=[[Columbus Museum of Art]] |year=1988 |isbn=0-8109-1811-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/2 2] |url=https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/2 }} (stating age at time of apprenticeship as 18)</ref> 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 Magazine|Harper's Weekly]]''. "From the time I took my nose off that lithographic stone," Homer later stated, "I have had no master, and never shall have any."<ref>Johns (2002), p. 13.</ref> Homer opened his own studio in Boston.<ref>{{cite web|title=Winslow Homer|access-date=13 August 2022|url=https://www.theartstory.org/artist/homer-winslow/}}</ref> |
After Homer's high school graduation, his father saw a newspaper advertisement and arranged for an apprenticeship. Homer's [[apprenticeship]] at the age of 19 to [[John Henry Bufford|J. H. Bufford]], a Boston commercial [[lithography|lithographer]], was a formative but "treadmill experience".<ref>{{citation |first=Nicolai Jr. |last=Cikovsky |title=Winslow Homer |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |location=New York |year=1990 |pages=11–13 |isbn=0-8109-1193-0}}; {{citation |editor-last=Roberts |editor-first=Norma J. |title=The American Collections |publisher=[[Columbus Museum of Art]] |year=1988 |isbn=0-8109-1811-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/2 2] |url=https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/2 }} (stating age at time of apprenticeship as 18)</ref> 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 Magazine|Harper's Weekly]]''. "From the time I took my nose off that lithographic stone," Homer later stated, "I have had no master, and never shall have any."<ref>Johns (2002), p. 13.</ref> Homer opened his own studio in Boston.<ref>{{cite web|title=Winslow Homer|access-date=13 August 2022|url=https://www.theartstory.org/artist/homer-winslow/}}</ref> |
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Homer's career as an [[illustrator]] lasted nearly twenty years. He contributed illustrations of Boston life and rural New England life to magazines such as ''[[Ballou's Pictorial]]'' and ''Harper's Weekly''<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p.2">{{citation |editor-last=Roberts |editor-first=Norma J. |title=The American Collections |publisher=[[Columbus Museum of Art]] |year=1988 |isbn=0-8109-1811-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/2 2] |url=https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/2 }}</ref> at a time when the market for illustrations was growing rapidly and fads and fashions were changing quickly. |
Homer's career as an [[illustrator]] lasted nearly twenty years. He contributed illustrations of Boston life and rural New England life to magazines such as ''[[Ballou's Pictorial]]'' and ''Harper's Weekly''<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p.2">{{citation |editor-last=Roberts |editor-first=Norma J. |title=The American Collections |publisher=[[Columbus Museum of Art]] |year=1988 |isbn=0-8109-1811-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/2 2] |url=https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/2 }}</ref> at a time when the market for illustrations was growing rapidly and fads and fashions were changing quickly. His early works, mostly commercial wood engravings of urban and country social scenes, are characterized by clean outlines, simplified forms, dramatic contrast of light and dark, and lively figure groupings—qualities that remained important throughout his career.<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 12</ref> His quick success was mostly due to this strong understanding of graphic design and also to the adaptability of his designs to wood engraving. |
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Before moving to New York in 1859, Homer lived in Belmont, Massachusetts with his family. |
Before moving to [[New York City]] 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, including several of his 1860s croquet pictures. The Homer House, owned by the Belmont Woman's Club, is open for public tours. |
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{{Clear}} |
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==Homer's studio== |
==Homer's studio== |
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[[File:Winslow Homer - Prisoners from the Front - The Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|''[[Prisoners from the Front |
[[File:Winslow Homer - Prisoners from the Front - The Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|upright=1|''[[Prisoners from the Front]]'' (1866), now housed in the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] in [[New York City]]]] |
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⚫ | [[File:A Visit from the Old Mistress.jpg|thumb|upright=1|''[[A Visit from the Old Mistress]]'' (1876), now housed in the [[Smithsonian American Art Museum]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10737 |title=A Visit from the Old Mistress|publisher=Americanart.si.edu |date=July 28, 1909 |access-date=December 3, 2013}}</ref>]] |
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In 1859, he opened a studio in the [[Tenth Street Studio Building]] in [[New York City]], the artistic and publishing capital of the United States. Until 1863, he attended classes at the [[National Academy of Design]], and studied briefly with Frédéric Rondel, who taught him the basics of painting.<ref name="Cooper, p. 13">Cooper, p. 13.</ref> 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), where he sketched battle scenes and camp life, the quiet moments as well as the chaotic ones.<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 15.</ref> His initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of the famous Union officer, Major General [[George B. McClellan]], at the banks of the [[Potomac River]] in October 1861. |
In 1859, he opened a studio in the [[Tenth Street Studio Building]] in [[New York City]], the artistic and publishing capital of the United States. Until 1863, he attended classes at the [[National Academy of Design]], and studied briefly with Frédéric Rondel, who taught him the basics of painting.<ref name="Cooper, p. 13">Cooper, p. 13.</ref> 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), where he sketched battle scenes and camp life, the quiet moments as well as the chaotic ones.<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 15.</ref> His initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of the famous Union officer, Major General [[George B. McClellan]], at the banks of the [[Potomac River]] in October 1861. |
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⚫ | Although the drawings did not get much attention at the time, they mark Homer's expanding skills from illustrator to painter. As with his urban scenes, Homer illustrated women during wartime, and showed the effects of the war on the home front. The war work was dangerous and exhausting. Back at his studio, Homer would regain his strength and re-focus his artistic vision. He set to work on a series of war-related paintings based on his sketches, among them ''Sharpshooter on Picket Duty'' (1862), ''Home, Sweet Home'' (1863), and ''Prisoners from the Front'' (1866).<ref name="Cikovsky 1990, p. 16">Cikovsky (1990), p. 16.</ref> He exhibited paintings of these subjects every year at the National Academy of Design from 1863 to 1866.<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p.2" /> ''Home, Sweet Home'' was shown at the National Academy to particular critical acclaim; it was quickly sold and the artist was consequently elected an Associate Academician, then a full Academician in 1865.<ref name="Cooper, p. 13"/> During this time, he also continued to sell his illustrations to periodicals such as ''Our Young Folks'' and ''Frank Leslie's Chimney Corner''.<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p.2" /> |
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⚫ | Although the drawings did not get much attention at the time, they mark Homer's expanding skills from illustrator to painter. As with his urban scenes, Homer illustrated women during wartime, and showed the effects of the war on the home front. The war work was dangerous and exhausting. Back at his studio, Homer would regain his strength and re-focus his artistic vision. He set to work on a series of war-related paintings based on his sketches, among them ''Sharpshooter on Picket Duty'' (1862), ''Home, Sweet Home'' (1863), and ''Prisoners from the Front'' (1866).<ref name="Cikovsky 1990, p. 16">Cikovsky (1990), p. 16.</ref> He exhibited paintings of these subjects every year at the National Academy of Design from 1863 to 1866.<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p.2" /> |
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After the |
After the [[American Civil 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. |
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⚫ | [[File:A Visit from the Old Mistress.jpg|thumb|upright= |
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Homer was also interested in postwar subject matter that conveyed the silent tension between two communities seeking to understand their future. His oil painting ''[[A Visit from the Old Mistress]]'' (1876) 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. Homer composed this painting from sketches he had made while traveling through Virginia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10737 |title=A Visit From the Old Mistress at the Smithsonian American Art Museum |publisher=Americanart.si.edu |date=July 28, 1909 |access-date=December 3, 2013}}</ref> |
Homer was also interested in postwar subject matter that conveyed the silent tension between two communities seeking to understand their future. His oil painting ''[[A Visit from the Old Mistress]]'' (1876) 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. Homer composed this painting from sketches he had made while traveling through Virginia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10737 |title=A Visit From the Old Mistress at the Smithsonian American Art Museum |publisher=Americanart.si.edu |date=July 28, 1909 |access-date=December 3, 2013}}</ref> |
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==Early landscapes and watercolors== |
==Early landscapes and watercolors== |
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[[File:Winslow Homer - Artists Sketching in the White Mountains.jpg|thumb| |
[[File:Winslow Homer - Artists Sketching in the White Mountains.jpg|thumb|upright=1|''Artists Sketching in the White Mountains'', 1868, now housed in the [[Portland Museum of Art]] in [[Portland, Maine]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://collections.portlandmuseum.org/Obj18617 |title=''Artists Sketching the White Mountains''|publisher=[[Portland Museum of Art]]|access-date=March 21, 2019}}</ref>]] |
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⚫ | [[File:Winslow Homer - Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1|''[[Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)]]'' (1873–76) now housed in the [[National Gallery of Art]] in [[Washington, D.C.]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/tinfo_f?object=30228 |title=Breezing Up at the National Gallery of Art |publisher=Nga.gov |access-date=December 3, 2013}}</ref>]] |
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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, |
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, |
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''Prisoners from the Front'', was on exhibit at the [[Exposition Universelle (1867)|Exposition Universelle]] in Paris at the same time.<ref name="Cikovsky 1990, p. 16"/> He did not study formally but he practiced landscape painting while continuing to work for ''Harper's'', depicting scenes of Parisian life. |
''Prisoners from the Front'', was on exhibit at the {{lang|fr|[[Exposition Universelle (1867)|Exposition Universelle]]|italic=no}} in Paris at the same time.<ref name="Cikovsky 1990, p. 16"/> He did not study formally but he practiced landscape painting while continuing to work for ''Harper's'', depicting scenes of Parisian life. |
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Homer painted approximately one |
Homer painted approximately one dozen small paintings during the stay. Although he arrived in France at a time of new fashions in art, Homer's main subject for his paintings was peasant life, showing more of an alignment with the established French [[Barbizon school]] and the artist [[Jean-François Millet|Millet]] than with newer artists [[Édouard Manet|Manet]] and [[Gustave Courbet|Courbet]]. Though his interest in depicting natural light parallels that of the early [[Impressionism|impressionists]], there is no evidence of direct influence as he was already a [[En plein air|plein-air]] painter in America and had already evolved a personal style which was much closer to Manet than [[Monet]]. Homer was very private about his personal life and his methods (even denying his first biographer any personal information or commentary), but his stance was clearly one of independence of style and a devotion to American subjects. As his fellow artist Eugene Benson wrote, Homer believed that artists "should never look at pictures" but should "stutter in a language of their own."<ref>Cikovsky (1990), pp. 32, 42.</ref> |
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Throughout the 1870s, Homer continued painting mostly rural or idyllic scenes of farm life, children playing, and young adults courting, including ''Country School'' (1871) and ''The Morning Bell'' (1872). In 1875, Homer quit working as a commercial illustrator and vowed to survive on his paintings and watercolors alone. Despite his excellent critical reputation, his finances continued to remain precarious.<ref>Johns (2002), p. 84.</ref> 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). Of his work at this time, [[Henry James]] wrote: |
Throughout the 1870s, Homer continued painting mostly rural or idyllic scenes of farm life, children playing, and young adults courting, including ''Country School'' (1871) and ''The Morning Bell'' (1872). In 1875, Homer quit working as a commercial illustrator and vowed to survive on his paintings and watercolors alone. Despite his excellent critical reputation, his finances continued to remain precarious.<ref>Johns (2002), p. 84.</ref> 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). Of his work at this time, [[Henry James]] wrote: |
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⚫ | [[File:Winslow Homer - Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)]]'' |
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<blockquote>We frankly confess that we detest his subjects ... he has chosen the least pictorial range of scenery and civilization; he has resolutely treated them as if they ''were'' pictorial ... and, to reward his audacity, he has incontestably succeeded.<ref>Quoted by Updike, John: "Epic Homer", ''Still Looking: Essays on American Art'', p. 58. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.</ref></blockquote> |
<blockquote>We frankly confess that we detest his subjects ... he has chosen the least pictorial range of scenery and civilization; he has resolutely treated them as if they ''were'' pictorial ... and, to reward his audacity, he has incontestably succeeded.<ref>Quoted by Updike, John: "Epic Homer", ''Still Looking: Essays on American Art'', p. 58. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.</ref></blockquote> |
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</gallery> |
</gallery> |
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==Life in the United Kingdom== |
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==England== |
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[[File:Winslow Homer - Three Fisher Girls, Tynemouth (1881).jpg|thumb|''Three Fisher Girls'', Tynemouth, watercolor on paper 1881, [[National Gallery of Art]], Washington D.C. ]] |
[[File:Winslow Homer - Three Fisher Girls, Tynemouth (1881).jpg|thumb|''Three Fisher Girls'', Tynemouth, watercolor on paper 1881, [[National Gallery of Art]], Washington D.C. ]] |
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Homer spent two years (1881–1882) in the |
Homer spent two years (1881–1882) in the 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.<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p.2" /> He wrote, "The women are the working bees. Stout hardy creatures."<ref>Johns (2002), p. 98.</ref> His works from this period are almost exclusively watercolors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/54.183|title=Inside the Bar – Winslow Homer – 54.183 – Work of Art – Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art}}</ref> 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. Although he moved away from the spontaneity and bright innocence of the American paintings of the 1860s and 1870s, Homer found a new style and vision which carried his talent into new realms.<ref>Cikovsky (1990), pp. 75–79.</ref> |
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==Maine and maturity== |
==Maine and maturity== |
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Back in the U.S. in November 1882, Homer showed his English watercolors in New York. Critics noticed the change in style at once, "He is a very different Homer from the one we knew in days gone by", now his pictures "touch a far higher plane ... They are works of High Art."<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 81.</ref> 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.<ref>Johns (2002), p. 105.</ref> |
Back in the U.S. in November 1882, Homer showed his English watercolors in New York. Critics noticed the change in style at once, "He is a very different Homer from the one we knew in days gone by", now his pictures "touch a far higher plane ... They are works of High Art."<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 81.</ref> 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.<ref>Johns (2002), p. 105.</ref> |
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In 1883, Homer moved to [[Prouts Neck, Maine]] (in [[Scarborough, Maine|Scarborough]]), and lived at his family's estate in the remodeled carriage house seventy-five feet from the ocean.<ref name="Cikovsky 1990, p. 91">Cikovsky (1990), p. 91.</ref> 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, Homer's figures "have the weight and authority of classical figures".<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 84.</ref> In ''[[Eight Bells (painting)|Eight Bells]]'' (1886), two sailors carefully take their bearings on deck, calmly appraising their position and by extension, their relationship with the sea; they are confident in their seamanship but respectful of the forces before them. Other notable paintings among these dramatic struggle-with-nature images are ''Banks Fisherman'', ''[[The Gulf Stream (painting)|The Gulf Stream]]'', ''Rum Cay'', ''Mending the Nets'', and ''[[Searchlight on Harbor Entrance, Santiago de Cuba]]''. Some of these he repeated as etchings.<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 94.</ref> |
In 1883, Homer moved to [[Prouts Neck, Maine]] (in [[Scarborough, Maine|Scarborough]]), and lived at his family's estate in the remodeled carriage house seventy-five feet from the ocean.<ref name="Cikovsky 1990, p. 91">Cikovsky (1990), p. 91.</ref> 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, Homer's figures "have the weight and authority of classical figures".<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 84.</ref> In ''[[Eight Bells (painting)|Eight Bells]]'' (1886), two sailors carefully take their bearings on deck, calmly appraising their position and by extension, their relationship with the sea; they are confident in their seamanship but respectful of the forces before them. Other notable paintings among these dramatic struggle-with-nature images are ''Banks Fisherman'', ''[[The Gulf Stream (painting)|The Gulf Stream]]'', ''Rum Cay'', ''Mending the Nets'', and ''[[Searchlight on Harbor Entrance, Santiago de Cuba]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Barrow |first=Ted |title=Resurfacing Winslow Homer's most elusive painting |url=https://www.artforum.com/slant/resurfacing-winslow-homer-s-most-elusive-painting-88842 |access-date=2022-11-30 |website=www.artforum.com |date=July 28, 2022 |language=en-US}}</ref> Some of these he repeated as etchings.<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 94.</ref> |
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[[File:Winslow Homer's 'Children Under a Palm Tree'.jpg|thumb|Winslow Homer's ''Children Under a Palm Tree,'' 1885]] |
[[File:Winslow Homer's 'Children Under a Palm Tree'.jpg|thumb|Winslow Homer's ''Children Under a Palm Tree,'' 1885]] |
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[[File:Fox Hunt 1893 Winslow Homer.jpg|thumb|''[[The Fox Hunt (painting)|The Fox Hunt]]'', 1893. Oil on canvas, 96.5 x 174 cm. [[Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts]].]] |
[[File:Fox Hunt 1893 Winslow Homer.jpg|thumb|''[[The Fox Hunt (painting)|The Fox Hunt]]'', 1893. Oil on canvas, 96.5 x 174 cm. [[Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts]].]] |
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[[File:Winslow Homer - The Gulf Stream - Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|right| ''[[The Gulf Stream (painting)|The Gulf Stream]]'', 1899, ''[[oil on canvas]],'' [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], [[New York City]]]] |
[[File:Winslow Homer - The Gulf Stream - Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|right| ''[[The Gulf Stream (painting)|The Gulf Stream]]'', 1899, ''[[oil on canvas]],'' [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], [[New York City]]]] |
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[[File:Winslow Homer - After the Hurricane, Bahamas - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right| |
[[File:Winslow Homer - After the Hurricane, Bahamas - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|''After the Hurricane'', 1899 painting of a man lying on a beach next to his destroyed boat in the Bahamas]] |
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''A Garden in Nassau'' (1885) 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.<ref>Johns (2002), pp. 127–128.</ref> |
''A Garden in Nassau'' (1885) 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.<ref>Johns (2002), pp. 127–128.</ref> |
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Homer frequently visited [[Key West, Florida]] between 1888 and 1903. Some of his best-known works, ''A Norther, Key West, The Gulf Stream, Taking on Wet Provisions,'' and ''Palms in the Storm'', are said to have been produced there.<ref>{{citation |title=Florida. A Guide to the Southernmost State|date=1939 |place=New York |author=Federal Writers' Project |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |page=159}}</ref> |
Homer frequently visited [[Key West, Florida]], between 1888 and 1903. Some of his best-known works, ''A Norther, Key West, The Gulf Stream, Taking on Wet Provisions,'' and ''Palms in the Storm'', are said to have been produced there.<ref>{{citation |title=Florida. A Guide to the Southernmost State|date=1939 |place=New York |author=Federal Writers' Project |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |page=159}}</ref> |
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Homer found inspiration in summer trips to the North Woods Club, near the hamlet of [[Minerva, New York]], in the [[Adirondack Mountains]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tatham |first1=David |title=Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks |date=April 2004 |publisher=[[Syracuse University Press]] |location=Syracuse, N.Y. |isbn=9780815607731 |edition=1st |url=https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/1098/ |oclc=492152650 |access-date=23 March 2021}}</ref> 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. Homer does not shrink from the savagery of blood sports nor the struggle for survival. The color effects are boldly and facilely applied. In terms of quality and invention, Homer's achievements as a watercolorist are unparalleled: "Homer had used his singular vision and manner of painting to create a body of work that has not been matched."<ref>Walsh, Judith: "Innovation in Homer's Late Watercolors", ''Winslow Homer'', p. 283. National Gallery of Art, 1995.</ref> |
Homer found inspiration in summer trips to the North Woods Club, near the hamlet of [[Minerva, New York]], in the [[Adirondack Mountains]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tatham |first1=David |title=Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks |date=April 2004 |publisher=[[Syracuse University Press]] |location=Syracuse, N.Y. |isbn=9780815607731 |edition=1st |url=https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/1098/ |oclc=492152650 |access-date=23 March 2021}}</ref> 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. Homer does not shrink from the savagery of blood sports nor the struggle for survival. The color effects are boldly and facilely applied. In terms of quality and invention, Homer's achievements as a watercolorist are unparalleled: "Homer had used his singular vision and manner of painting to create a body of work that has not been matched."<ref>Walsh, Judith: "Innovation in Homer's Late Watercolors", ''Winslow Homer'', p. 283. National Gallery of Art, 1995.</ref> |
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In 1893, Homer painted one of his most famous "Darwinian" works, ''[[The Fox Hunt (painting)|The Fox Hunt]]'', 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.<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 115.</ref> In ''Huntsman and Dogs'' (1891), 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), shows a black sailor adrift in a damaged boat, surrounded by sharks |
In 1893, Homer painted one of his most famous "Darwinian" works, ''[[The Fox Hunt (painting)|The Fox Hunt]]'', 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.<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 115.</ref> In ''Huntsman and Dogs'' (1891), 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), shows a black sailor adrift in a damaged boat, surrounded by sharks as a waterspout approaches.<ref>Cikovsky (1990), p. 120.</ref> |
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[[File:Northeaster by Winslow Homer 1895.jpg|thumb|''Northeaster'', 1895]] |
[[File:Northeaster by Winslow Homer 1895.jpg|thumb|''Northeaster'', 1895]] |
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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.<ref>Johns (2002), pp. 127–150.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/homr/hd_homr.htm |title=Winslow Homer (1836–1910)|publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date=September 12, 2014}}</ref> |
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.<ref>Johns (2002), pp. 127–150.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/homr/hd_homr.htm |title=Winslow Homer (1836–1910)|publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date=September 12, 2014}}</ref> |
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File:Winslow Homer - Crab Fishing.jpg|''Crab Fishing'', 1883 |
File:Winslow Homer - Crab Fishing.jpg|''Crab Fishing'', 1883 |
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File:Winslow Homer - The Herring Net - Google Art Project.jpg|''The Herring Net'', 1885 |
File:Winslow Homer - The Herring Net - Google Art Project.jpg|''The Herring Net'', 1885 |
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File:Winslow Homer - Sunlight on the Coast - Google Art Project.jpg|''Sunlight on the Coast'', 1890<br />([[Toledo Museum of Art]], [[Ohio]])<ref>[http://www.toledomuseum.org/Collection/Homer_Sunlight.htm |
File:Winslow Homer - Sunlight on the Coast - Google Art Project.jpg|''Sunlight on the Coast'', 1890<br />([[Toledo Museum of Art]], [[Ohio]])<ref>[http://www.toledomuseum.org/Collection/Homer_Sunlight.htm] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080324061250/http://www.toledomuseum.org/Collection/Homer_Sunlight.htm|date=March 24, 2008}}</ref> |
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File:Moonlight, Wood Island Light.jpg|''[[Moonlight, Wood Island Light]]'', 1894, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
File:Moonlight, Wood Island Light.jpg|''[[Moonlight, Wood Island Light]]'', 1894, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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File: Winslow_Homer_-_Shark_fishing.jpg |''Shark Fishing'', 1885 |
File: Winslow_Homer_-_Shark_fishing.jpg |''Shark Fishing'', 1885 |
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In 1962, the U.S. Post Office released a [[commemorative stamp]] honoring Winslow Homer. Homer's famous oil painting ''[[Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)|Breezing Up]]'', now hanging in the National Gallery in Washington DC, was chosen as the image for the design of this issue.<ref>Scott's United States stamp catalogue</ref>{{full citation needed|date=December 2017}} On August 12, 2010, The Postal Service issued a 44-cent commemorative stamp featuring Homer's ''Boys in a Pasture'' at the APS Stamp Show in Richmond, Virginia. |
In 1962, the U.S. Post Office released a [[commemorative stamp]] honoring Winslow Homer. Homer's famous oil painting ''[[Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)|Breezing Up]]'', now hanging in the National Gallery in Washington DC, was chosen as the image for the design of this issue.<ref>Scott's United States stamp catalogue</ref>{{full citation needed|date=December 2017}} On August 12, 2010, The Postal Service issued a 44-cent commemorative stamp featuring Homer's ''Boys in a Pasture'' at the APS Stamp Show in Richmond, Virginia. |
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This stamp was the ninth to be issued in a series entitled "American Treasures". The original painting is part of the Hayden Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. |
This stamp was the ninth to be issued in a series entitled "American Treasures". The original painting is part of the Hayden Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It depicts two boys from Belmont, Massachusetts—John Carney and Patrick Keenan—who posed for the artist for 75 cents per day.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10052&productId=10006988&langId=-1 |title=Shops.usps.com |publisher=Shop.usps.com |date=March 28, 2011 |access-date=December 3, 2013}}</ref> |
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==Works== |
==Works== |
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<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px" caption="Croquet"> |
<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px" caption="Croquet"> |
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File:Homer Croquet 1.jpg|''A Game of Croquet'', 1866 |
File:Homer Croquet 1.jpg|''A Game of Croquet'', 1866<ref>{{cite web|url=http://digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/arkley/id/2151/rec/3|title=The art of Winslow Homer|work=ubc.ca}}</ref> |
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{{cite web|url=http://digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/arkley/id/2151/rec/3|title=The art of Winslow Homer|work=ubc.ca}}</ref> |
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File:Winslow Homer - Croquet Scene - Google Art Project.jpg|''Croquet Scene'', 1866 |
File:Winslow Homer - Croquet Scene - Google Art Project.jpg|''Croquet Scene'', 1866 |
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File:Homer Croquet 2.jpg|''The Croquet Match'', c. 1869<ref>{{cite web|url=http://digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/arkley/id/2154/rec/4|title=The art of Winslow Homer|work=ubc.ca}}</ref> |
File:Homer Croquet 2.jpg|''The Croquet Match'', c. 1869<ref>{{cite web|url=http://digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/arkley/id/2154/rec/4|title=The art of Winslow Homer|work=ubc.ca}}</ref> |
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{{Commons}} |
{{Commons}} |
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{{EB1911 Poster|Homer, Winslow|Winslow Homer}} |
{{EB1911 Poster|Homer, Winslow|Winslow Homer}} |
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{{external media | width = 210px | |
{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | |
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headerimage=[[File:Winslow Homer, American - The Life Line - Google Art Project.jpg|210px]] | video1 =[http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/homers-the-life-line.html Homer's ''The Life Line''] |
headerimage=[[File:Winslow Homer, American - The Life Line - Google Art Project.jpg|210px]] | video1 =[http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/homers-the-life-line.html Homer's ''The Life Line''] |
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| video2 =[http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/homer-the-fog-warning.html Homer's ''The Fog Warning (Halibut Fishing)'']}} |
| video2 =[http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/homer-the-fog-warning.html Homer's ''The Fog Warning (Halibut Fishing)'']}} |
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{{Winslow Homer}} |
{{Winslow Homer}} |
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{{Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame}} |
{{Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame}} |
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{{Authority control (arts)}} |
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{{ACArt}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Homer, Winslow}} |
{{DEFAULTSORT:Homer, Winslow}} |
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[[Category:1836 births]] |
[[Category:1836 births]] |
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[[Category:1910 deaths]] |
[[Category:1910 deaths]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:American landscape artists]] |
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[[Category:Art Students League of New York alumni]] |
[[Category:Art Students League of New York alumni]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:Painters from Boston]] |
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[[Category:Gilded Age]] |
[[Category:Gilded Age]] |
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[[Category:People from Scarborough, Maine]] |
[[Category:People from Scarborough, Maine]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:American realist painters]] |
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[[Category:American marine artists]] |
[[Category:American marine artists]] |
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[[Category:American watercolorists]] |
[[Category:American watercolorists]] |
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[[Category:Olympic competitors in art competitions]] |
[[Category:Olympic competitors in art competitions]] |
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[[Category:People from Cullercoats]] |
[[Category:People from Cullercoats]] |
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[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]] |
Revision as of 21:34, 4 June 2024
Winslow Homer | |
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![]() Homer in 1880 | |
Born | Winslow Homer February 24, 1836 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Died | (aged 74) Prouts Neck, Maine, U.S. | September 29, 1910
Education | Lithography apprenticeship, 1855–56 National Academy of Design (painting), 1863 Paris (informal), 1867 |
Known for | Drawing Wood engraving Oil painting Watercolor painting |
Notable work | Harper's Weekly Magazine Ballou's Pictorial Magazine Snap the Whip The Veteran in a New Field Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) |
Movement | Realism, American Realism |
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters of 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art in general.
Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator.[1] 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.[2][3]
Early life
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Joseph_E._Baker_-_Portrait_of_Winslow_Homer_at_the_age_of_twenty-one_%28cropped%29.jpg/220px-Joseph_E._Baker_-_Portrait_of_Winslow_Homer_at_the_age_of_twenty-one_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Homer was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 24, 1836, the second of three sons of Charles Savage Homer and Henrietta Maria Benson Homer, both from long lines of New Englanders. His mother was a gifted amateur watercolorist and Homer's first teacher. She and her son had a close relationship throughout their lives. Homer took on many of her traits, including her quiet, strong-willed, terse, sociable nature, her dry sense of humor, and her artistic talent.[4] Homer had a happy childhood, growing up mostly in then-rural Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was an average student, but 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 13 years old, 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.[5]
After Homer's high school graduation, his father saw a newspaper advertisement and arranged for an apprenticeship. Homer's apprenticeship at the age of 19 to J. H. Bufford, a Boston commercial lithographer, was a formative but "treadmill experience".[6] 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. "From the time I took my nose off that lithographic stone," Homer later stated, "I have had no master, and never shall have any."[7] Homer opened his own studio in Boston.[8]
Homer's career as an illustrator lasted nearly twenty years. He contributed illustrations of Boston life and rural New England life to magazines such as Ballou's Pictorial and Harper's Weekly[9] at a time when the market for illustrations was growing rapidly and fads and fashions were changing quickly. His early works, mostly commercial wood engravings of urban and country social scenes, are characterized by clean outlines, simplified forms, dramatic contrast of light and dark, and lively figure groupings—qualities that remained important throughout his career.[10] His quick success was mostly due to this strong understanding of graphic design and also to the adaptability of his designs to wood engraving.
Before moving to New York City 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, including several of his 1860s croquet pictures. The Homer House, owned by the Belmont Woman's Club, is open for public tours.
Homer's studio
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Winslow_Homer_-_Prisoners_from_the_Front_-_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_Prisoners_from_the_Front_-_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/Winslow_Homer_-_Long_Branch%2C_New_Jersey.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_Long_Branch%2C_New_Jersey.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Winslow_Homer_-_Crossing_the_Pasture.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_Crossing_the_Pasture.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/A_Visit_from_the_Old_Mistress.jpg/220px-A_Visit_from_the_Old_Mistress.jpg)
In 1859, he opened a studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City, the artistic and publishing capital of the United States. Until 1863, he attended classes at the National Academy of Design, and studied briefly with Frédéric Rondel, who taught him the basics of painting.[12] 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), where he sketched battle scenes and camp life, the quiet moments as well as the chaotic ones.[13] His initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of the famous Union officer, Major General George B. McClellan, at the banks of the Potomac River in October 1861.
Although the drawings did not get much attention at the time, they mark Homer's expanding skills from illustrator to painter. As with his urban scenes, Homer illustrated women during wartime, and showed the effects of the war on the home front. The war work was dangerous and exhausting. Back at his studio, Homer would regain his strength and re-focus his artistic vision. He set to work on a series of war-related paintings based on his sketches, among them Sharpshooter on Picket Duty (1862), Home, Sweet Home (1863), and Prisoners from the Front (1866).[14] He exhibited paintings of these subjects every year at the National Academy of Design from 1863 to 1866.[9] Home, Sweet Home was shown at the National Academy to particular critical acclaim; it was quickly sold and the artist was consequently elected an Associate Academician, then a full Academician in 1865.[12] During this time, he also continued to sell his illustrations to periodicals such as Our Young Folks and Frank Leslie's Chimney Corner.[9]
After the American Civil 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.
Homer was also interested in postwar subject matter that conveyed the silent tension between two communities seeking to understand their future. His oil painting A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876) 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. Homer composed this painting from sketches he had made while traveling through Virginia.[15]
Near the beginning of his painting career, the 27-year-old Homer demonstrated a maturity of feeling, depth of perception, and mastery of technique which was immediately recognized. His realism was objective, true to nature, and emotionally controlled. One critic wrote, "Winslow Homer is one of those few young artists who make a decided impression of their power with their very first contributions to the Academy ... He at this moment wields a better pencil, models better, colors better, than many whom, were it not improper, we could mention as regular contributors to the Academy." And of Home, Sweet Home specifically, "There is no clap-trap about it. The delicacy and strength of emotion which reign throughout this little picture are not surpassed in the whole exhibition." "It is a work of real feeling, soldiers in camp listening to the evening band, and thinking of the wives and darlings far away. There is no strained effect in it, no sentimentality, but a hearty, homely actuality, broadly, freely, and simply worked out."[14]
Early landscapes and watercolors
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Winslow_Homer_-_Artists_Sketching_in_the_White_Mountains.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_Artists_Sketching_in_the_White_Mountains.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Winslow_Homer_-_Breezing_Up_%28A_Fair_Wind%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_Breezing_Up_%28A_Fair_Wind%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
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.[14] He did not study formally but he practiced landscape painting while continuing to work for Harper's, depicting scenes of Parisian life.
Homer painted approximately one dozen small paintings during the stay. Although he arrived in France at a time of new fashions in art, Homer's main subject for his paintings was peasant life, showing more of an alignment with the established French Barbizon school and the artist Millet than with newer artists Manet and Courbet. 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. Homer was very private about his personal life and his methods (even denying his first biographer any personal information or commentary), but his stance was clearly one of independence of style and a devotion to American subjects. As his fellow artist Eugene Benson wrote, Homer believed that artists "should never look at pictures" but should "stutter in a language of their own."[18]
Throughout the 1870s, Homer continued painting mostly rural or idyllic scenes of farm life, children playing, and young adults courting, including Country School (1871) and The Morning Bell (1872). In 1875, Homer quit working as a commercial illustrator and vowed to survive on his paintings and watercolors alone. Despite his excellent critical reputation, his finances continued to remain precarious.[19] 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). Of his work at this time, Henry James wrote:
We frankly confess that we detest his subjects ... he has chosen the least pictorial range of scenery and civilization; he has resolutely treated them as if they were pictorial ... and, to reward his audacity, he has incontestably succeeded.[20]
Many disagreed with James. Breezing Up, Homer's iconic painting of a father and three boys out for a spirited sail, received wide praise. The New York Tribune wrote, "There is no picture in this exhibition, nor can we remember when there has been a picture in any exhibition, that can be named alongside this." Visits to Petersburg, Virginia, around 1876 resulted in paintings of rural African American life. The same straightforward sensibility which allowed Homer to distill art from these potentially sentimental subjects also yielded the most unaffected views of African American life at the time, as illustrated in Dressing for the Carnival (1877)[21] and A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876).[22]
In 1877, Homer exhibited for the first time at the Boston Art Club with the oil painting, An Afternoon Sun, (owned by the Artist). From 1877 through 1909, Homer exhibited often at the Boston Art Club. Works on paper, both drawings and watercolors, were frequently exhibited by Homer beginning in 1882. A most unusual sculpture by the Artist, Hunter with Dog – Northwoods, was exhibited in 1902. By that year, Homer had switched his primary Gallery from the Boston-based Doll and Richards to the New York City based Knoedler & Co.
Homer became a member of The Tile Club, a group of artists and writers who met frequently to exchange ideas and organize outings for painting, as well as foster the creation of decorative tiles. For a short time, he designed tiles for fireplaces.[23]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Winslow_Homer_-_Eastern_Point_Light_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_Eastern_Point_Light_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
Homer's nickname in The Tile Club was "The Obtuse Bard". Other well known Tilers were painters William Merritt Chase, Arthur Quartley, and the sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens.
Homer started painting with watercolors on a regular basis in 1873 during a summer stay in Gloucester, Massachusetts. From the beginning, his technique was natural, fluid and confident, demonstrating his innate talent for a difficult medium. His impact would be revolutionary. Here, again, the critics were puzzled at first, "A child with an ink bottle could not have done worse."[24] Another critic said that Homer "made a sudden and desperate plunge into water color painting". But his watercolors proved popular and enduring, and sold more readily, improving his financial condition considerably. They varied from highly detailed (Blackboard – 1877) to broadly impressionistic (Schooner at Sunset – 1880). Some watercolors were made as preparatory sketches for oil paintings (as for "Breezing Up") and some as finished works in themselves. Thereafter, he seldom traveled without paper, brushes and water based paints.[25]
As a result of disappointments with women or from some other emotional turmoil, Homer became reclusive in the late 1870s, no longer enjoying urban social life and living instead in Gloucester. For a while, he even lived in secluded Eastern Point Lighthouse (with the keeper's family). 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.[26]
- Early landscapes and watercolors
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Girl in the Hammock, 1873
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The Four Leaf Clover, 1873
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Boys in a Dory, 1873, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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The Green Hill, 1878
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On the Stile, c. 1878
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Peach Blossoms, 1878
Life in the United Kingdom
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Homer spent two years (1881–1882) in the 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.[9] He wrote, "The women are the working bees. Stout hardy creatures."[27] His works from this period are almost exclusively watercolors.[28] 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. Although he moved away from the spontaneity and bright innocence of the American paintings of the 1860s and 1870s, Homer found a new style and vision which carried his talent into new realms.[29]
Maine and maturity
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Winslow_Homer_-_The_Fog_Warning_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_The_Fog_Warning_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
Back in the U.S. in November 1882, Homer showed his English watercolors in New York. Critics noticed the change in style at once, "He is a very different Homer from the one we knew in days gone by", now his pictures "touch a far higher plane ... They are works of High Art."[30] 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.[31]
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.[32] 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, Homer's figures "have the weight and authority of classical figures".[33] In Eight Bells (1886), two sailors carefully take their bearings on deck, calmly appraising their position and by extension, their relationship with the sea; they are confident in their seamanship but respectful of the forces before them. Other notable paintings among these dramatic struggle-with-nature images are Banks Fisherman, The Gulf Stream, Rum Cay, Mending the Nets, and Searchlight on Harbor Entrance, Santiago de Cuba.[34] Some of these he repeated as etchings.[35]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Winslow_Homer%27s_%27Children_Under_a_Palm_Tree%27.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer%27s_%27Children_Under_a_Palm_Tree%27.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Fox_Hunt_1893_Winslow_Homer.jpg/220px-Fox_Hunt_1893_Winslow_Homer.jpg)
At fifty years of age, Homer had become a "Yankee Robinson Crusoe, cloistered on his art island" and "a hermit with a brush". These paintings established Homer, as the New York Evening Post wrote, "in a place by himself as the most original and one of the strongest of American painters."[32] 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. Many of the sea pictures took years to sell and Undertow only earned him $400.[36]
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.[37] In the winters of 1884–5, Homer ventured to warmer locations in 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.[38] During this trip he painted Children Under a Palm Tree for Edith Blake, the wife of Henry Arthur Blake, the then-governor of The Bahamas. His tropical stays inspired and refreshed him in much the same way as Paul Gauguin's trips to Tahiti.[39]
Children Under a Palm Tree was re-discovered on an episode of Antiques Roadshow in 2008, and was formally attributed to Homer on BBC's television series Fake or Fortune? by Philip Mould and Fiona Bruce. Ownership of the painting remains an on-going controversy.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/Winslow_Homer_-_The_Gulf_Stream_-_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_The_Gulf_Stream_-_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Winslow_Homer_-_After_the_Hurricane%2C_Bahamas_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_After_the_Hurricane%2C_Bahamas_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
A Garden in Nassau (1885) 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.[40]
Homer frequently visited Key West, Florida, between 1888 and 1903. Some of his best-known works, A Norther, Key West, The Gulf Stream, Taking on Wet Provisions, and Palms in the Storm, are said to have been produced there.[41]
Homer found inspiration in summer trips to the North Woods Club, near the hamlet of Minerva, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains.[42] 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. Homer does not shrink from the savagery of blood sports nor the struggle for survival. The color effects are boldly and facilely applied. In terms of quality and invention, Homer's achievements as a watercolorist are unparalleled: "Homer had used his singular vision and manner of painting to create a body of work that has not been matched."[43]
In 1893, Homer painted one of his most famous "Darwinian" works, The Fox Hunt, 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.[44] In Huntsman and Dogs (1891), 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), shows a black sailor adrift in a damaged boat, surrounded by sharks as a waterspout approaches.[45]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Northeaster_by_Winslow_Homer_1895.jpg/220px-Northeaster_by_Winslow_Homer_1895.jpg)
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.[46] 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.[47]
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."[48]
Homer died in 1910 at the age of 74 in his Prouts Neck studio and was interred in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His painting, Shooting the Rapids, Saguenay River, remains unfinished.
His Prouts Neck studio, a National Historic Landmark, is now owned by the Portland Museum of Art, which offers tours.[49]
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Moonlight, 1874
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Crab Fishing, 1883
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The Herring Net, 1885
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Moonlight, Wood Island Light, 1894, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Shark Fishing, 1885
Influence
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Winslow_Homer_-_The_Fisher_Girl_%281894%29.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_The_Fisher_Girl_%281894%29.jpg)
Homer never taught in a school or privately, as did Thomas Eakins, but his works strongly influenced succeeding generations of American painters for their direct and energetic interpretation of man's stoic relationship to an often neutral and sometimes harsh wilderness.[51] Robert Henri called Homer's work an "integrity of nature".[52]
American illustrator and teacher Howard Pyle revered Homer and encouraged his students to study him. His student and fellow illustrator, N. C. Wyeth (and through him Andrew Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth), shared the influence and appreciation, even following Homer to Maine for inspiration.[53] The elder Wyeth's respect for his antecedent was "intense and absolute" and can be observed in his early work Mowing (1907).[54] Perhaps Homer's austere individualism is best captured in his admonition to artists: "Look at nature, work independently, and solve your own problems."
U.S. stamp
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/Winslow_Homer_-_Shooting_the_Rapids%2C_Saguenay_River.jpg/220px-Winslow_Homer_-_Shooting_the_Rapids%2C_Saguenay_River.jpg)
In 1962, the U.S. Post Office released a commemorative stamp honoring Winslow Homer. Homer's famous oil painting Breezing Up, now hanging in the National Gallery in Washington DC, was chosen as the image for the design of this issue.[55][full citation needed] On August 12, 2010, The Postal Service issued a 44-cent commemorative stamp featuring Homer's Boys in a Pasture at the APS Stamp Show in Richmond, Virginia.
This stamp was the ninth to be issued in a series entitled "American Treasures". The original painting is part of the Hayden Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It depicts two boys from Belmont, Massachusetts—John Carney and Patrick Keenan—who posed for the artist for 75 cents per day.[56]
Works
His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.[57] Unlike many artists who were well known for working in only one art medium, Winslow Homer was prominent in a variety of art media, as in the following examples:
- Country life
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Fresh Eggs, 1874
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Song of the Lark, 1876, oil on canvas. Chrysler Museum of Art
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The Reaper, 1878
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The Milk Maid, 1878
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Girl and Laurel, 1879
Pastoral landscapes and lifestyle (see pastoralism) is a genre of literature, art and music that depicts shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. A pastoral is a work of this genre.
- Pastoral landscapes
-
Bo-Peep, 1878
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Shepherdess Tending Sheep, 1878
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Warm Afternoon (Shepherdess), 1878
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The Blue Boy, 1876
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Twilight at Leeds, 1876
Winslow Homer's paintings often depicted marine landscapes. Later, when Winslow Homer spent the years between 1881 and 1882 in the village of Cullercoats, Tyne and Wear, his paintings depicting shores and coastal landscapes changed. Many of the paintings from the English coast have as subjects working men and women from the area.
- Shores and beaches
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On the Beach, 1869
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Eagle Head, Manchester, Massachusetts, 1870
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Dad's Coming!, 1873
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Clear Sailing, 1880
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Two boys watching schooners, 1880
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A Basket of Clams, 1873
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A Fresh Breeze, c. 1881
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Girl Carrying a Basket, 1882
-
Girl with Red Stockings, 1882
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The Life Line, 1884
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Summer Night, 1890
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Watching the Breakers, 1891
- Mountain landscapes
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The Bridle Path, 1868, oil painting (Clark Art Institute)
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A Huntsman and Dogs, 1891
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Mink Pond, 1891
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The Hudson River, 1892
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The Adirondack Guide, 1894
- Croquet
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A Game of Croquet, 1866[58]
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Croquet Scene, 1866
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The Croquet Match, c. 1869[59]
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Croquet Players, 1865[60]
References
- ^ Poole, Robert M. Hidden Depths. Smithsonian Magazine. April 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2008.
- ^ Cooper, Helen A., Winslow Homer Watercolors, p. 16. Yale University Press, 1986.
- ^ Hoeber, Arthur (February 1911). "Winslow Homer, A Painter of the Sea". The World's Work: A History of Our Time. XXI: 14009–14017. Retrieved July 10, 2009.
- ^ Cooper, p. 16.
- ^ Elizabeth Johns, Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002, p. 9, ISBN 0-520-22725-5.
- ^ Cikovsky, Nicolai Jr. (1990), Winslow Homer, New York: Harry N. Abrams, pp. 11–13, ISBN 0-8109-1193-0; Roberts, Norma J., ed. (1988), The American Collections, Columbus Museum of Art, p. 2, ISBN 0-8109-1811-0 (stating age at time of apprenticeship as 18)
- ^ Johns (2002), p. 13.
- ^ "Winslow Homer". Retrieved August 13, 2022.
- ^ a b c d Roberts, Norma J., ed. (1988), The American Collections, Columbus Museum of Art, p. 2, ISBN 0-8109-1811-0
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 12
- ^ "A Visit from the Old Mistress". Americanart.si.edu. July 28, 1909. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
- ^ a b Cooper, p. 13.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 15.
- ^ a b c Cikovsky (1990), p. 16.
- ^ "A Visit From the Old Mistress at the Smithsonian American Art Museum". Americanart.si.edu. July 28, 1909. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
- ^ "Artists Sketching the White Mountains". Portland Museum of Art. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
- ^ "Breezing Up at the National Gallery of Art". Nga.gov. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), pp. 32, 42.
- ^ Johns (2002), p. 84.
- ^ Quoted by Updike, John: "Epic Homer", Still Looking: Essays on American Art, p. 58. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
- ^ "Winslow Homer: Dressing for the Carnival (22.220) – Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History – The Metropolitan Museum of Art". metmuseum.org.
- ^ Updike, John, p. 69, 2005. "Among his feats may be listed the best, least caricatural portraits of postbellum African Americans,"
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 65.
- ^ Rough Notes on the Exhibition of the American Water Color Society for 1881, "Andrews' American Queen", p. 110. February 12, 1881.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 57.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 72.
- ^ Johns (2002), p. 98.
- ^ "Inside the Bar – Winslow Homer – 54.183 – Work of Art – Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History". The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), pp. 75–79.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 81.
- ^ Johns (2002), p. 105.
- ^ a b Cikovsky (1990), p. 91.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 84.
- ^ Barrow, Ted (July 28, 2022). "Resurfacing Winslow Homer's most elusive painting". www.artforum.com. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 94.
- ^ Johns (2002), p. 122.
- ^ Johns (2002), p. 114.
- ^ Johns (2002), p. 124.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 100.
- ^ Johns (2002), pp. 127–128.
- ^ Federal Writers' Project (1939), Florida. A Guide to the Southernmost State, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 159
- ^ Tatham, David (April 2004). Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks (1st ed.). Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815607731. OCLC 492152650. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
- ^ Walsh, Judith: "Innovation in Homer's Late Watercolors", Winslow Homer, p. 283. National Gallery of Art, 1995.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 115.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 120.
- ^ Johns (2002), pp. 127–150.
- ^ "Winslow Homer (1836–1910)". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved September 12, 2014.
- ^ Cikovsky (1990), p. 131.
- ^ "Portland Museum". Portland Museum. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
- ^ [1] Archived March 24, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ See Lost on the Grand Banks, collection of Bill Gates
- ^ Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, Harper Collins, 1984
- ^ An American Vision: Three Generations of Wyeth Art, New York Graphic Society, 1987, p. 68, ISBN 0-8212-1652-X.
- ^ Wyeth (1987), p. 38.
- ^ Scott's United States stamp catalogue
- ^ "Shops.usps.com". Shop.usps.com. March 28, 2011. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
- ^ "Winslow Homer". Olympedia. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- ^ "The art of Winslow Homer". ubc.ca.
- ^ "The art of Winslow Homer". ubc.ca.
- ^ "A game of croquet". ubc.ca.
Further reading
- Athens, Elizabeth; Ruud, Brandon; Tedeschi, Martha, Coming Away: Winslow Homer & England. Worcester, Massachusetts: Worcester Art Museum; Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Milwaukee Art Museum; New Haven, Connecticut: in association with Yale University Press, 2017. ISBN 9780300229905
- Byrd, Dana E.; Goodyear III, Frank H., Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photography and the Art of Painting. Brunswick, Maine: Bowdoin College Museum of Art; New Haven, Connecticut, in association with Yale University Press, 2018. ISBN 9780300214550
- Cross, William R., Winslow Homer: American Passage. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022. ISBN 9780374603793
- Griffin, Randall C., Winslow Homer: An American Vision. London: Phaidon Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-7148-7419-7
- Grossman, Julian, Echo of a Distant Drum: Winslow Homer and the Civil War. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1974. ISBN 0810902257. Reissued as The Civil War: Battlefields and Campgrounds in the Art of Winslow Homer. Abradale Press/H. N. Abrams, 1991. ISBN 9780810981119
- Herdrich, Stephanie L. and Sylvia Yount, Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, 2022. Exhibition Catalog
- Malcolm, John, Simpson's Homer, 2001 and 2006. This art mystery novel, the only novel to feature Winslow Homer, involves Tim Simpson tracking down an unknown watercolour by Homer of Cullercoats in 1881. ISBN 1-901167-14-3
- Murphy, Alexandra R., Winslow Homer in the Clark Collection. Williamstown, Mass: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1986. ISBN 0-931102-19-7
- Sherman, Frederic Fairchild, American Painters of Yesterday and Today, 1919, Priv. print in New York. Chapter: Early Paintings by Winslow Homer
- Wood, Peter H. and Dalton, Karen C. C., Winslow Homer's Images of Blacks: The Civil War and Reconstruction Years. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0292790476
- Wood, Peter H., Weathering the Storm: Inside Winslow Homer's Gulf Stream. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0820326252
- Wood, Peter H., Near Andersonville: Winslow Homer's Civil War. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, UK: Harvard University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-674-05320-5
External links
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- Analysis of 126 Famous Paintings by Winslow Homer
- Wood, Peter H. "Winslow Homer and the American Civil War". A lecture on Homer's painting Near Andersonville and his relationship to the Civil War. Southern Spaces, March 4, 2011.
- Analysis of 125 Famous Winslow Homer Paintings
- Winslow-Homer.com
- Winslow Homer Artwork Examples on AskART.
- "Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History". Exhibition held at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in 2005. The exhibition website showcases the range of Homer's work—oil paintings, watercolors, drawings and etchings, as well as approximately 120 wood engravings and other reproductions from the Clark's collections.
- Winslow Homer at the Clark: a series of videos produced by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute that explore the themes, contexts and techniques of Winslow Homer works in the Clark collection.
- Winslow Homer biography, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Winslow Homer Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
- Philip C. Beam papers, c. 1946– c. 1993; Homer historian and his related collection from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
- Winslow Homer collection at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
- 1836 births
- 1910 deaths
- American landscape artists
- Art Students League of New York alumni
- Painters from Boston
- Gilded Age
- People from Scarborough, Maine
- American realist painters
- American marine artists
- American watercolorists
- Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery
- 19th-century American painters
- American male painters
- 20th-century American painters
- 20th-century American printmakers
- American landscape painters
- Painters from Florida
- History of Key West, Florida
- Olympic competitors in art competitions
- People from Cullercoats
- Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters