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Close to us, a young man and three boys sit or recline in a small sailboat that tips to our left on a choppy dark green sea in this horizontal painting. The billowing sail extends off the top left corner of the canvas and is echoed in the background to our right by the tall sails of another ship in the distance. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the composition, and puffy gray and white clouds sweep across the turquoise sky. The sun lights the scene from our right so the boys’ ruddy faces are in shadow under their hats. The young man and boys all face our left so they lean against and into the boat as it cants up to our right. The boy nearest the sail to our left reclines across the bow. Next to him to our right, a younger boy perches on the edge of the boat and holds on with both hands. The oldest, in a red shirt, sits on the floor of the boat as he maneuvers the sail with a rope. Closer to us and to our right, a younger boy sits with his bare feet pressed together in front of his bent knees on the back edge of the boat, gazing into the distance over his right shoulder as he handles the tiller. The artist signed and dated the painting in dark letters in the lower right corner: “HOMER 1876.”

Winslow Homer

Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), 1873-1876

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 68

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 61.5 x 97 cm (24 3/16 x 38 3/16 in.)

framed: 90.5 x 126.4 cm (35 5/8 x 49 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of the W. L. and May T. Mellon Foundation

Accession Number

1943.13.1

Artists / Makers

Winslow Homer (artist) American, 1836 - 1910

Image Use

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Overview

Homer developed a penchant for forceful realism early in his career. Following an apprenticeship in a Boston lithography shop, he supported himself as a freelance illustrator, creating a wide variety of popular images that subsequently were published as wood engravings in national periodicals like Harper's Weekly. During the early 1860s, his themes ranged from stylish seaside–resort life to the horrors of the battlefield. Following an extended trip to Europe in 1866–1867, Homer adopted a warmer palette, a looser brush technique, and an interest in painting outdoor scenes that owed much to the influence of contemporary French artists such as Courbet, Manet, and Monet.

Upon his return to the United States, Homer turned his attention to lively scenes of sports and recreation, painting warm and appealing images that perfectly suited the prevalent postwar nostalgia for a simpler, more innocent America. Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), painted during the country's centennial year, has become one of the best–known and most beloved artistic images of life in 19th–century America.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I, pages 312-318, which is available as a free PDF at https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-19th-century-part-1.pdf

Inscription

lower right: HOMER 1876.; lower left: HOMER

Provenance

Purchased from the artist by Charles Stewart Smith [1832-1909], New York, by 1878;[1] by inheritance to his son, Howard Caswell Smith, Oyster Bay, New York; sold 1943 to (Wildenstein & Co., New York); purchased 31 December 1943 by NGA.

[1] Smith's son believed that his father purchased the painting directly from the artist, per his letter of 31 October 1947, in NGA curatorial files. However, Charles Smith may instead have purchased the painting at auction in early 1877. Gerdts (in Lloyd Goodrich, edited and expanded by Abigail Booth Gerdts, Record of Works by Winslow Homer, New York, 2005: 2:no. 596) writes that according to the New York Commercial Advertiser (27 February 1877), the artist sent the painting to be included in an exhibition at Kurtz Gallery, New York, that was to be followed by the works being auctioned under the direction of Daniel A. Mathews on 1 and 2 March 1877. The New York Herald announced (3 March 1877) that the painting sold for one of the highest prices realized at the auction.

Associated Names

Smith, Charles Stewart
Smith, Howard Caswell
Wildenstein & Co., Inc.

Exhibition History

1876: Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, 1876, no. 194, as A Fair Wind.

1877: Kurtz Art Gallery, New York, 1877, no cat., as A Fair Wind.

1887: Exhibition of Oil Paintings, The Union League Club, New York, 1887, no. 33, as Breezing Up.

1936: Winslow Homer Centenary Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1936-1937, 22, no. 14, as Breezing Up, or A Fair Wind.

1946: American Painting from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, Tate Gallery, London, 1946, no. 105.

1947: 40 Masterpieces: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings from American Museums, City Art Museum of St. Louis, 1947, no. 24, repro., as Breezing Up.

1947: A Loan Exhibition of Winslow Homer, Wildenstein & Company, New York, 1947, no. 20, as A Fair Wind or Breezing Up.

1949: Homer, Eakins, Ryder, Inness and their French Contemporaries: A Loan Exhibition of Famous Paintings from Foremost American Museums and Collectors, Fort Worth Art Association, Texas, 1949, no. 18, frontispiece, as Breezing Up.

1958: Winslow Homer: A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1958-1959, 114, no. 37.

1959: A Retrospective Exhibition: Winslow Homer, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1959, 95, no. 33, as Breezing Up.

1965: Troies Millenaires d'Art et de Marine, Petit Palais, Paris, 1965, no. 18.

1966: Paintings by American Masters: Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, Kalamazoo Art Center, Michigan, 1966, 10, as Breezing Up.

1967: Interpex Exhibition, New York, 1967, no cat.

1973: Winslow Homer, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Art Institute of Chicago, 1973, 35, no. 35, as Breezing Up or A Fair Wind.

1976: American Marine Painting, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; The Mariners Museum, Newport News, Virginia, 1976, 97, no. 44, as Breezing Up.

1980: Loan for display with permanent collection, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980.

1995: Winslow Homer, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1995-1996, no. 76, repro.

2000: A Fair Wind: Maritime Paintings by Winslow Homer, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 2000, unnumbered brochure, repro.

2001: Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2001-2002, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 76.

2005: Winslow Homer in the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2005-2006, unnumbered brochure, fig. 3.

2009: American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2009-2010, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 10.

Technical Summary

The medium-weight, plain-weave fabric support has been lined and cusping is found only on the vertical edges. Over the white ground of moderate thickness is a thin reddish-brown imprimatura. X-radiography, infrared reflectography, and pentimenti reveal many changes in the composition: alterations in the angle of the mast and the position of the tiller and rudder; the deletion of two boats in the background; the addition of the schooner at right on top of the completed sky; and the replacement of the figure of a boy in the bow with an anchor. The flattened impasto is, presumably, a consequence of previous treatments. In 1966, the varnish was thinned and the painting was restored. In 1995, the discolored varnish was removed from the surface and a triangular black gray overpaint in the upper right corner was removed. The picture was revarnished and inpainted to hide pentimenti.

Bibliography

1876: "Art Matters, A Hasty Glance at the Academy Exhibition." New York Evening Express (20 April 1876).

1876: "Fine Arts. Fifty-first Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design." New York Times (26 March 1876).

1876: "Fine Arts. National Academy of Design--Fifty-first Annual Exhibition."New York Tribune (1 April 1876).

1876: "Fine Arts." New York Evening Post (5 January 1876).

1876: "Fine Arts. The National Academy Exhibition. II." The Nation 22 (20 April 1876): 268.

1876: "The Arts. Representative Pictures at the Academy." Appleton's Journal 15 (15 April 1876): 508.

1876: "The Arts: The Academy Exhibition." Appleton's Journal 15 (22 April 1876): 539.

1876: "The Fine Arts. Exhibition of the National Academy." New York Times (8 April 1876).

1876: "The National Academy of Design." New York Sun (30 April 1876).

1876: "The National Academy of Design (Second Notice)." Art Journal 2 (1876):190.

1877: Benjamin, Samuel G.W. Art in America: A Critical and Historical Sketch. New York, 1877: 124, repro. 124, as Sail Boat.

1877: "Fine Arts. American Paintings." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (26 February 1877).

1878: Sheldon, George W. "American Painters--Winslow Homer and F.A. Bridgman." Art Journal 4 (August 1878).

1879: Benjamin, Samuel G.W. "Present Tendencies of American Art." Harper's New Monthly Magazine 58 (March 1879): 488, repro. 488, as Sail Boat.

1879: Sheldon, George William. American Painters. New York, 1879.

1880: Strahan, Edward (pseud. of Earl Shinn). The Art Treasures of America. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1880. Reprint, New York, 1977: 2:92.

1887: "Paintings at the Union League Club." New York Tribune (11 March 1887), as Breezing Up.

1889: Montgomery, Walter, ed. American Art and American Art Collections. 2 vols. Boston, 1889. Reprint, New York and London, 1978: 2:718, 720, as A Fair Wind.

1911: Downes, William Howe. The Life and Works of Winslow Homer. Boston and New York, 1911: 90.

1932: Bolton, Theodore. "The Art of Winslow Homer: An Estimate." Fine Arts 18 (February 1932): 53.

1943: Burrows, Carlyle. "Art Events of the Week." New York Herald Tribune (27 June 1943).

1944: Art Digest 18 (1 January 1944): 11, repro.

1944: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 174, color repro.

1944: Goodrich, Lloyd. Winslow Homer. New York, 1944: 70, 72, repro. 11.

1944: Goodrich, Lloyd. "Young Winslow Homer." Magazine of Art 37 (February 1944): repro. 59.

1946: Favorite Paintings from the National Gallery of Art Washington, D.C.. New York, 1946: 73-75, color repro., as Breezing Up.

1947: "American Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries in the Tate Gallery Exhibition." Antiques 51 (February 1947): no. 68, repro. 107.

1947: Gibbs, Josephine. "Honoring Homer." Art Digest 21 (1 March 1947): 10, repro. 10.

1947: Louchheim, Aline B. "Homer: Success Story; This Retrospective Accents High Spots." Art News 45 (March 1947): 40-41, 59-60, color repro. 40.

1948: Walker, John. "American Masters in the National Gallery of Art." National Geographic Magazine 94 (September 1948): 323, color repro. 29.

1951: King, Marian. Portfolio Number 3. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: no. 11, color repro.

1951: Walker, John. Paintings from America. Harmondsworth, England, 1951: 29, 44, pl. 29.

1956: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 56, repro., as Breezing Up.

1958: Porter, Fairfield. "Homer, American vs. Artist: A Problem in Identities." Art News 57 (December 1958): 56.

1959: Bouton, Margaret. American Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number One in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 26, color repro., as Breezing Up.

1959: Goodrich, Lloyd. Winslow Homer. New York, 1959: repro. 29.

1960: The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 20, as Breezing Up.

1961: Gardner, Albert Ten Eyck. Winslow Homer, American Artist: His World and His Work. New York, 1961: 197, color repro. 73.

1962: Gould, Jean. Winslow Homer: A Portrait. New York, 1962: 152, 166, repro. opp. 166.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 290, repro., as Breezing Up.

1966: Beam, Philip C. Winslow Homer at Prout's Neck. Boston, 1966: 11.

1966: Beam, Philip C. Winslow Homer at Prout's Neck. Exh. cat. Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Brunswick, Maine, 1966: n.p.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:490, color repro., as Breezing Up.

1966: Flexner, James Thomas. The World of Winslow Homer, 1836-1910. New York, 1966: 88, color repro. 88-89.

1967: Wilmerding, John. Pittura Americana dell' Ottocento. Milan, 1967: 27, color repro. 491.

1968: Wilmerding, John. A History of American Marine Painting. Salem, Massachusetts, 1968: 214, 218, 221, repro. 216.

1969: Prown, Jules David. American Painting: From Its beginnings to the Armory Show. Geneva, 1969. Reprint, Geneva, 1977: 87, 89, 90, color repro. 87.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 68, repro., as Breezing Up.

1971: Campbell, William P. "The American Heritage at the National Gallery of Art." The Connoisseur 178 (December 1971): repro. 269.

1972: Wilmerding, John. Winslow Homer. New York, 1972: 92, 94, 134, 174, detail color repro. 127.

1973: Williams, Hermann Warner. Mirror to the American Past: A Survey of American Genre Painting, 1750-1900. Greenwich, Connecticut, 1973: 183.

1975: Stein, Roger B. Seascape and the American Imagination. New York, 1975: 137.

1975: Wilmerding, John. Audubon, Homer, Whistler, and Nineteenth Century America. New York, 1975: 12, 13, color repro. 61.

1976: Bloomer, Carolyn M. Principles of Visual Perception. New York, 1976: 69, fig. 5-6.

1976: Eager, Gerald. "The Iconography of the Boat in 19th-Century American Painting." Art Journal 35, no. 3 (Spring 1976): 228, fig. 7.

1976: Wilmerding, John. American Art. Hammondsworth, England, and New York, 1976: 134, pl. 160.

1978: King, Marian. Adventures in Art: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1978: 103, pl. 65, as Breezing Up.

1979: Hendricks, Gordon. The Life and Work of Winslow Homer. New York, 1979: 118-119, 275, 276, 282, color repro. 107.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 176, repro., as Breezing Up.

1980: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 9, 15, no. 34, color repro.

1980: Wilmerding, John. "Winslow Homer's Right and Left." Studies in the History of Art 9 (1980): 64, repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 172, 173. repro. 174.

1983: Beam, Philip C. Winslow Homer Watercolors. Brunswick, Maine, 1983: 14, 19, 28, 46.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 554, no. 842, color repro.

1986: Cooper, Helen A. Winslow Homer Watercolors. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. Washington, 1986: 38, 245, color repro. 39.

1986: Judge, Mary A. Winslow Homer. New York, 1986: 45, color repro. 33.

1987: Prown, Jules David. "Winslow Homer in His Art." Smithsonian Studies in American Art 1 (Spring 1987): 41-42, repro. 36.

1987: Wilmerding, John. American Marine Painting. Rev. ed. of A History of American Marine Painting, 1968. New York, 1987: 151, 157, color repro. 158.

1988: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 120, no. 37, color repro.

1990: Carren, Rachel Ann. "From Reality to Symbol: Images of Children in the Art of Winslow Homer." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 1990: 1:viii, 106-118, 215; 2:repro. 41.

1990: Cikovsky, Nicolai, Jr. "Homer around 1900." In Winslow Homer: A Symposium. Edited by Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr. In Studies in the History of Art 26 (1990): 144-145, repro. 144.

1990: Cikovsky, Nicolai, Jr. Winslow Homer. New York, 1990: 56, 58, 61, 87, 147, color repro. 59.

1990: Cikovsky, Nicolai, Jr. "Winslow Homer's Unfinished Business." Studies in the History of Art 37 (1990): 102.

1990: Wilmerding, John, and Linda Ayres. Winslow Homer in the 1870's: Selections from the Valentine-Pulsifer Collection. Exh. cat. The Art Museum, Princeton University; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. Princeton, 1990: 16, 44, 46-49, repro. 44.

1991: Wilmerding, John. American Views: Essays on American Art. Princeton, 1991: 208, 227, 312, 337-338 n.50, 340 n.10, repro. 206.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 204, repro.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 241, repro.

1995: Winslow Homer. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1995-1996: no. 76.

1996: Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 312-318, color repro.

1997: Hughes, Robert. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. New York, 1997: 306-307, color fig. 185.

1997: Ross, Novelene. Toward an American Identity: Selections from the Wichita Art Museum Collection of American Art. Wichita, Kansas, 1997: p. 66, no. 3, repro.

1998: Haltman, Kenneth. "Antipastoralism in Early Winslow Homer" in Art Bulletin, Vol. LXXX, No. 1. 1998: 106-107, repro. no. 23.

1998: Prown, Jules D. "Winslow Homer in His Art." In Reading American Art ed. Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy. New Haven, 1998: 269, 270, fig. 12.4. (Reprints Washington 1987, above.)

2003: Lubin, David M. Shooting Kennedy: JFK and the Culture of Images. Berkeley, 2003: 42-43, 321, fig. 13.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 322-323, no. 259, color repro.

2005: Goodrich, Lloyd, and Abigail Booth Gerdts. Record of Works by Winslow Homer, vol. 2. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2005, no. 596.

2006: Wilmerding, John. "Masterpiece: The Odyssey of Winslow Homer." The Wall Street Journal (12 August 2006).

2008: Nemerov, Alexander. "Ground Swell: Edward Hopper in 1939." American Art 22, no. 3 (Fall 2008): 51-53, fig. 1.

2009: Gariff, David, Eric Denker, and Dennis P. Weller. The World's Most Influential Painters and the Artists They Inspired. Hauppauge, NY, 2009: 121, color repro.

2011: Goldin, Marco. Van Gogh e il viaggio di Gauguin: Variazioni su un tema. Exh. cat. Genoa, 2011. Treviso, 2011: 163, color repro.

2011: Greenhalgh, Adam. "Edward Hopper, Ground Swell." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 248, fig. 1.

2014: Kelly, Franklin. "A Lasting Legacy: The Completion of an Unparalleled Gift." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 51 (Fall 2014): 7, repro.