Winslow Homer (1836 - 1910)

Saco Bay, 1896

"The sun will not rise or set without my notice, and thanks," Winslow Homer, 1895

Best known for his paintings of the sea, did you know that Winslow Homer also did paintings of the American Civil War? From the Joselyn Art Museum (Omaha, Nebraska) site:

"Acknowledged today as one of the world's greatest watercolorists, Winslow Homer grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was apprenticed in his teens to a lithographer in Boston. In 1855 he moved to New York City and attended the National Academy of Design. During this period he made his living as an illustrator for various magazines, chiefly Harper's Weekly, for whom he served as a pictorial correspondent during the Civil War, participating in several Union campaigns. At about this same time, Homer began painting in oils. His Prisoners from the Front, completed in 1866, and the only large-scale oil he produced based on his wartime experiences, won him immediate acclaim when it was shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Homer achieved success as an illustrator through his ability to draw quickly and accurately. His sense of the dramatic and direct narrative style carried over into his later paintings. In the 1880s he turned to marine subjects and eventually settled in Maine, where he spent most of the remainder of his life."

For an introduction to Winslow Homer, we have enjoyed:



Winslow Homer by Mike Venezia (from the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series.)

One of our favorite art (painting) history resources is:



Sister Wendy's Story of Painting by Sister Wendy Beckett

We also have this book:



Winslow Homer Paintings : 24 Cards.

I took the twenty-four cards from the book and handed them to each of my children. Their job was to choose their favorite, and these were the winners:



Early Morning After a Storm at Sea, 1902


Girl with Laurel, 1879


The Fog Warning, 1885


The Artist Studio in an Afternoon Fog, 1894


Morning Glories, 1873

My favorite is the picture at the top of the post.

I love how realistic the ocean is in Homer's paintings. You can almost smell the salt in the air or feel the spray of the waves on your cheek. But, not quite. Sometimes a foothill-dwelling woman has to hoof it across valley and mountains to see, feel, and smell the ocean for herself. One of these days I am going to wake everyone before the sun rises, pop them in the van with cocoa and coffee and muffins, and head to the coast. When your heart's home is the sea, you can't be land-locked for too long before the soul withers a bit.