Died: Prout's Neck, Maine 1910
Biography
Painter and graphic artist. Homer's illustrations of the Civil War forHarper's Weekly are singular and outstanding examples of wartime reporting. Later, his dramatic paintings of the sea, many of which were completed at his seacoast home in Prout's Neck, Me., established Homer as a leading American artist.
No single artist represented as many different old New Englands as did Winslow Homer. An illustrator, watercolorist, marine and landscape painter, Homer's vision of his native region enjoyed great currency in his lifetime and influenced countless others, both before and after his death. His path to greatness, like so many other painters of the period, led directly out of a work-a-day middle-class background.
Homer's father owned a hardware store in Boston and his mother was an accomplished watercolorist. The younger Homer took a job with John Henry Bufford and, like James Wells Champney, the future artist seemed destined for a career as an illustrator. In 1859, however, Homer moved to New York City and began taking classes at the National Academy of Design. He came to popular attention during the Civil War as a sketch artist for Harper's Weekly and his oil paintings of wartime scenes secured his place as a major American talent. He was elected to the National Academy in 1866.
Homer traveled to Paris that year and upon his return focused his art on nostalgic scenes of rural life, including one-room school houses, children at play, country stores, and an old wooden mill. In 1881 and 1882, he lived in Cullercoats, an English fishing village on the North Sea coast. Homer relocated to Prout's Neck, Maine, and, for the remainder of his life, dedicated himself primarily to painting the rugged people and landscape of the Atlantic coastline.
A Visit from the Old Mistress
1876oil on canvas18 x 24 in. (45.7 x 61.0 cm.)Smithsonian American Art Museumhttp://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=10737A Visit from the Old Mistress captures a tentative encounter in the postwar South. The freed slaves are no longer obliged to greet their former mistress with welcoming gestures, and one remains seated as she would not have been allowed to do before the war. Winslow Homer composed the work from sketches he had made while traveling through Virginia; it conveys a silent tension between two communities seeking to understand their future. The formal equivalence between the standing figures suggests the balance that the nation hoped to find in the difficult years of Reconstruction.
High Cliff, Coast of Maine.
1894
oil.
30 1/2 x 38 1/4 in.
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/t2go/1ga/index-noframe.html?/exhibitions/online/t2go/1ga/1909.7.29.html
The ocean wages a mighty and relentless assault on a rocky cliff at Prout's Neck, Maine, where Winslow Homer took refuge from civilization for thirty years. Two small figures at the upper right provide the only hint of man's witness to the natural drama. Homer was despondent when the painting did not sell quickly, saying, “I cannot do better than that. Why should I paint?”
High Cliff, Coast of Maine.
1894
oil.
30 1/2 x 38 1/4 in.
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/t2go/1ga/index-noframe.html?/exhibitions/online/t2go/1ga/1909.7.29.html
The ocean wages a mighty and relentless assault on a rocky cliff at Prout's Neck, Maine, where Winslow Homer took refuge from civilization for thirty years. Two small figures at the upper right provide the only hint of man's witness to the natural drama. Homer was despondent when the painting did not sell quickly, saying, “I cannot do better than that. Why should I paint?”
Bear Hunting, Prospect Rock
1892
watercolor and pencil
13 15/16 x 20 1/16 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly Guns ready, two grizzled hunters balance against a steep rock face that drops precipitously to a valley floor far below. Though no bear appears in the painting, the danger is palpable. The men are modeled on guides from the North Woods Club where Homer spent much of his time. Prospect Rock, located less than a quarter of a mile away from the clubhouse and reached by a graded trail, was one of Homer’s favorite spots to paint. He often rearranged or modified details of the landscape to suit his compositional needs. In this watercolor Homer presents man as an essential part of nature, neither overwhelmed by its grandeur, nor fully in control of the wilderness.
Art on viewhttp://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/results/?num=10&view=1&name=winslow+homer&title=&keywords=&type=&number=&btnG.x=48&btnG.y=11&btnG=Find
Winslow Homer (1836—1910) was twenty-five when the Civil War began in the spring of 1861. Although his native state of Massachusetts was recruiting thousands of men his age to serve in the Union army, Homer, as a special artist for Harper’s Weekly, was fortunate to have been able to pursue his chosen profession while satisfying his wanderlust for adventure much like a soldier. He was just beginning a lifelong career that would earn him fame and affluence for his paintings of American life and nature, especially of the sea. Already he was winning admirers through the pages of Harper’s with his sensitive wood engravings that portrayed the life of soldiers in camp and conveyed the longing of loved ones left behind.
Homer was mostly a self-taught artist whose talent was readily apparent from the start of his career. It was matched by his determination to develop his skills independently and to his own liking. As evidence of this, Homer declined to join the staff of Harper’s, preferring instead to contribute to the paper as a freelance artist. For Homer, the Civil War provided an unusual opportunity to explore and practice the nuances of his profession, while rendering a service to those who valued his art as a documentary of the war.
Between 1861 and 1865, Homer made several trips to the war front in Virginia. Armed with a letter from Fletcher Harper, the editor of Harper’s Weekly, identifying him as a “special artist,” Homer was able to move through the lines and gain access to the Army of the Potomac. Early in April 1861, he was in Alexandria and witnessed the embarkation of the army aboard steamers that would ferry it to the Peninsula near Richmond in preparation for General George B. McClellan’s long-awaited spring offensive. A drawing he made of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry—the only Union regiment to carry lances—gave witness to Homer's eye for the unusual and the dramatic.
Homer sailed with the army down the Potomac toward Fortress Monroe and Yorktown in the Tidewater region. With his drawing supplies of pen and pencil, gray wash, and white paper, Homer stayed with the army for about two months, during which time the siege of Yorktown took place and the Battle of Fair Oaks was fought. Except for what can be delineated in his drawings, Homer never kept records of his movements. Yet the correspondence of an acquaintance, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Channing Barlow of the 61st New York Infantry, indicated that the artist camped, at least temporarily, with the 61st. Homer subtly made this association himself in at least two of his works, in which the number “61” appears on a knapsack. Based on evidence in two other works—the paintings The Briarwood Pipe (1864) and Pitching Horseshoes (1865)—Homer at some point also came in contact with the 5th New York Infantry, also known as “Duryee’s Zouaves.” Labeled “the best disciplined and soldierly regiment in the Army” by General McClellan, they wore distinctive Zouave uniforms of bright red pantaloons, red fezzes, and dark blue collarless jackets. Homer made sketches of these colorfully clad soldiers, fully realizing that this work had a potential for “future greatness.”
“Future greatness.” That was how Homer’s mother described her son and his activities in the fall of 1861. Mrs. Homer’s confidence evokes the self-assuredness of the artist himself. While lasting fame still awaited him, Homer studiously used the backdrop of the Civil War as a practice canvas upon which to record a series of his impressions, a few of which have become iconic images of the common soldier. Many of his sketches would of course appear as wood engravings in Harper’s. Still dozens more would become study-vignettes for future paintings, some of which he put on exhibition and offered for sale.
The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, in New York City owns more than three dozen of Homer’s original Civil War sketches. These form part of a larger collection of 287 drawings donated by Homer’s brother, Charles Savage Homer Jr., in 1912, two years after Winslow’s death. The drawings, many of them rough sketches, are indicative of how Homer worked to compile a portfolio of images for future use. While his artistic skill is clearly evident, these drawings reveal the early work of a man with great ambitions who would become one of America’s most acclaimed artists.
Art on viewhttp://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/results/?num=10&view=1&name=winslow+homer&title=&keywords=&type=&number=&btnG.x=48&btnG.y=11&btnG=Find
Winslow Homer and the Civil War
http://www.civilwar.si.edu/homer_intro.htmlWinslow Homer (1836—1910) was twenty-five when the Civil War began in the spring of 1861. Although his native state of Massachusetts was recruiting thousands of men his age to serve in the Union army, Homer, as a special artist for Harper’s Weekly, was fortunate to have been able to pursue his chosen profession while satisfying his wanderlust for adventure much like a soldier. He was just beginning a lifelong career that would earn him fame and affluence for his paintings of American life and nature, especially of the sea. Already he was winning admirers through the pages of Harper’s with his sensitive wood engravings that portrayed the life of soldiers in camp and conveyed the longing of loved ones left behind.
Homer was mostly a self-taught artist whose talent was readily apparent from the start of his career. It was matched by his determination to develop his skills independently and to his own liking. As evidence of this, Homer declined to join the staff of Harper’s, preferring instead to contribute to the paper as a freelance artist. For Homer, the Civil War provided an unusual opportunity to explore and practice the nuances of his profession, while rendering a service to those who valued his art as a documentary of the war.
Between 1861 and 1865, Homer made several trips to the war front in Virginia. Armed with a letter from Fletcher Harper, the editor of Harper’s Weekly, identifying him as a “special artist,” Homer was able to move through the lines and gain access to the Army of the Potomac. Early in April 1861, he was in Alexandria and witnessed the embarkation of the army aboard steamers that would ferry it to the Peninsula near Richmond in preparation for General George B. McClellan’s long-awaited spring offensive. A drawing he made of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry—the only Union regiment to carry lances—gave witness to Homer's eye for the unusual and the dramatic.
Homer sailed with the army down the Potomac toward Fortress Monroe and Yorktown in the Tidewater region. With his drawing supplies of pen and pencil, gray wash, and white paper, Homer stayed with the army for about two months, during which time the siege of Yorktown took place and the Battle of Fair Oaks was fought. Except for what can be delineated in his drawings, Homer never kept records of his movements. Yet the correspondence of an acquaintance, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Channing Barlow of the 61st New York Infantry, indicated that the artist camped, at least temporarily, with the 61st. Homer subtly made this association himself in at least two of his works, in which the number “61” appears on a knapsack. Based on evidence in two other works—the paintings The Briarwood Pipe (1864) and Pitching Horseshoes (1865)—Homer at some point also came in contact with the 5th New York Infantry, also known as “Duryee’s Zouaves.” Labeled “the best disciplined and soldierly regiment in the Army” by General McClellan, they wore distinctive Zouave uniforms of bright red pantaloons, red fezzes, and dark blue collarless jackets. Homer made sketches of these colorfully clad soldiers, fully realizing that this work had a potential for “future greatness.”“Future greatness.” That was how Homer’s mother described her son and his activities in the fall of 1861. Mrs. Homer’s confidence evokes the self-assuredness of the artist himself. While lasting fame still awaited him, Homer studiously used the backdrop of the Civil War as a practice canvas upon which to record a series of his impressions, a few of which have become iconic images of the common soldier. Many of his sketches would of course appear as wood engravings in Harper’s. Still dozens more would become study-vignettes for future paintings, some of which he put on exhibition and offered for sale.
The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, in New York City owns more than three dozen of Homer’s original Civil War sketches. These form part of a larger collection of 287 drawings donated by Homer’s brother, Charles Savage Homer Jr., in 1912, two years after Winslow’s death. The drawings, many of them rough sketches, are indicative of how Homer worked to compile a portfolio of images for future use. While his artistic skill is clearly evident, these drawings reveal the early work of a man with great ambitions who would become one of America’s most acclaimed artists.
No comments:
Post a Comment