100 Years of Illustration : Winslow Homer 1836-1910

I'm indebted to Patti Hannaway and her wonderful book, "Winslow Homer in the Tropics," published in 1973 by Westover Publishing Company of Richmond, Virginia for the information I gleaned from it, as well as the scans which are credited as well to the museums which display the paintings. The book is still available, click on box, right.

What I love about this book is her great appreciation for Homer's work and her direct uncomplicated way of describing it. Not only that, but there are so many really great paintings, mostly in watercolor, which Homer did so well. In fact, I don't think there's ever been another American painter who can match him, with the possible exception of John Singer Sargent, whose total output in that medium is just of fraction of what Winslow Homer accomplished. For books about Sargent, click on Amazon link right. Click on images to enlarge them.

"The Gulf Stream" painted in 1889 is a 20 x 11-3/8-inch watercolor from The Art Institute of Chicago. Hannaway writes, "His shark-versus-man theme, perhaps unconventional, was thought to be a good deal too harsh for sensitive art lovers! As a storytelling picture, this work conveys stark reality as the artist saw and felt it. The viewer must simply draw his own conclusion."

"The Gulf Stream" is a 49 x 28-inch oil painting of the same theme begun in 1884 and finished in 1889, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Wolfe Fund. Hannaway writes, "This oil is the only one Homer's tropicals ever exhibited at the National Academy of Design and, following its 1906 exhibition there, was finally purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $4,500." A princely sum for those days.

Detail of the above painting.

"Negro Cabins and Palms" is a 21 x 14-3/8-inch watercolor painted in 1898 and owned by The Brooklyn Museum. Hannaway writes of this, "In his early sixties, the artist gloried in painting these pictures -- reveling in the sun and sand and the tropical sea. Each day found him out early to capture the rapidly emerging pageantry before him. He was working in a kind of ecstasy with a swift, sure touch. He depicted the palms loosely in in dark, gray-green shades against the pale, luminous, possibly early-morning sky."

"Stowing Sail" is another watercolor, slightly less than 22 by 14 inches in size and painted in 1903, from The Art Institute of Chicago's Ryerson Collection. Hannaway writes, "The painting's overall appearance is transparent and the feeling is profoundly cool and airy. We also see here vivid evidence of Homer's use of red, since he deftly managed to inject three splashes of it in strategic positions."

"Wrecked Schooner" is a 21 x 14-1/2-inch watercolor of 1908 from the City Art Museum of St. Louis. This is said to be the last watercolor he completed. Hannaway feels the death of the schooner's crew made him aware of his own impending death and concludes her text, "It was one of the last important pictures he rendered in a medium which, more than any other American artist, he had raised to a level of major stature, and undoubtedly was one of his finest paintings."

Wh_mug

"The art of Winslow Homer, like the man himself, is generic and indigenous. Its roots lie deep in that fundamental nationalism which is the most precious legacy his countrymen can boast, and nothing has ever diminished its initial force and veracity. From first to last the work of this discerning eye and sure, steady hand was the result of direct and wholesome response to local environment. He painted only that which he saw and with which he could claim life-long familiarity. In its early phases this art depicted with patient fidelity the homely provincialism of the day. In its final expression it rises to heights of abstract grandeur unapproached by any other American painter, yet always and everywhere it sounds the note of race and country. The achievement, during those long years of struggle and isolation, of an utterance wellnigh universal, was unattended by any sacrifice of that simple birthright which had been his chief source of strength and inspiration."

Though Christian Brinton (1870-1942) may have been an internationally noted critic, collector, and curator, I have trouble reading verbosity such as this. Would old Winslow Homer recognize himself as the subject of that article, which appeared in Scribner's Monthly magazine for January 1911?

I purposely uploaded Homer after Remington so you could see the similarity of their early work. Both worked as magazine illustrators in a particularly deliberate style. Remington was more the mechanic who included every possible detail in his drawings. Homer's appeared stiff, Both suffered as a result of the photos they used. I don't think drawing from sketches would have had the same static poses.

Winslow Homer was born in Boston on 24 February 1836 of New England Yankee parentage. His boyhood was spent across the Charles River in the college town of Cambridge. (Brinton calls it a village.) He drew incessantly and had accumulated quite a portfolio before he acquired a job at 19 with a Boston lithographer. He left to work from his own studio at the age of 21.

He arrived in New York City in 1859 to attend classes at the National Academy, working out of a small room in Nassau Street. In 1861 he got a job as artist-correspondent with Harper's Weekly and covered the Civil War with the Army of the Potomac. During this time he began to experiment with watercolors and oils, and exhibited at the National Academy in 1866.

Later that year he made his first trip to Paris, where he improved upon his artistic style. In 1875 he gave up his magazine work and concentrated solely on painting, travelled to England in 1881. In 1883 he returned to the USA and eventually settled in Prout's Neck on the coast of Maine, then made annual trips to paint his best work in the Adirondack mountains of New York, Florida and the Caribbean. He led a very solitary existence at Prout's Neck, where he departed this life in 1910 at the age of 74.

Click on images to enlarge them.