Winslow Homer
Born – Boston, USA 1836
Died – Prout’s Neck, USA 1910
Winslow Homer’s early life was spent on the New England coats of Massachusetts and Maine. After training as a lithographer he moved to New York City in 1859, where he worked as an illustrator and war artist, spending several months with the Union army. He travelled to France and then to England, where he stayed in Tynemouth painting seascapes in watercolour. His style broadened and his brushstrokes loosened. In 1883 Homer settled in Prout’s Neck, on the Maine coast. Although more tonal than the Impressionists, he observed the effects of light with equal interests. He travelled again, to the Bahamas, Florida and Bermuda, where his paintings of huntsmen, sea divers and fishermen record his fascination with man’s struggle against the darker forces of nature. Watercolour studies of shark fishing and of an ominously derelict and dismasted schooner were used as the basis of The Gulf Stream. The painting has been described as a catalogue of marine catastrophe. A water spout compounds the danger already wrought by the hurricane which has snapped both mast and bowsprit. And, just below the surface, the sharks are waiting…
Masterpieces:
- The Fox Hunt
- Fishing Boats, Key West
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About winslow homer
Winslow Homer: An American Vision
Randall C. Griffin
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Winslow Homer
Kate F. Jennings
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Winslow Homer Watercolors
Helen A. Cooper
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