Autumn

1877

Winslow Homer

Artist, American, 1836 - 1910

A woman with smooth, pale skin and wearing a hat, long dress, and gloves, stands holding a bunch of pumpkin-orange leaves against a background of trees painted with touches of rust orange and pine green in this vertical painting. The woman tips her head back slightly to look at us with dark eyes under arched eyebrows. Her cheeks are flushed and her coral-pink lips closed. Her round black hat perches on the back of her head and she has an inky black, long-sleeved, hip-length jacket with bronze trim at the shoulders, cuffs, and down the front. A gauzy bow is tied at her neck. Her left elbow, on our right, is bent and she holds up her tan-colored, ruffled skirt with a white-gloved hand. The raised skirt exposes sky-blue lining and white, ruffled flounces at her feet. Her right arm, on our left, hangs at her side and holds the handle of a basket. Deep marigold-orange leaves cascade out of the basket. One black shoe peeks out from under her long skirt. She stands on a hill carpeted with crimson-red, tawny-brown, golden yellow, and forest-green leaves. The space behind her is filled with touches and dabs of red, orange, brown, black, and tan.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.
Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I, pages 318-322, 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
On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 68

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    overall: 97.1 x 58.9 cm (38 1/4 x 23 3/16 in.)
    framed: 126.4 x 91.1 x 7.9 cm (49 3/4 x 35 7/8 x 3 1/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1985.64.22

More About this Artwork

We look out onto a sweeping, panoramic view with trees, their leaves fiery orange and red, framing a view of a distant body of water under a sun-streaked sky in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and is lined with hazy mountains and clouds in the deep distance. Close examination slowly reveals minuscule birds tucked into the crimson-red, golden yellow, and deep, sage-green leaves of the trees to either side of the painting. Closest to us, vine-covered, fallen tree trunks and mossy gray boulders line the bottom edge of the canvas. Beyond a trickling waterfall and small pool near the lower left corner, and tiny within the scale of the landscape, a group of three men and their dogs sit and recline around a blanket and a picnic basket, their rifles leaning against a tree nearby. The land sweeps down to a grassy meadow crossed by a meandering stream that winds into the distance, at the center of the painting. Touches of white and gray represent a flock of grazing sheep in the meadow. A low wooden bridge spans the stream to our right, and a few cows drink from the riverbank. Smoke rises from chimneys in a town lining the riverbank and shoreline beyond, and tiny white sails and steamboats dot the waterway. Light pours onto the scene with rays like a starburst from behind a lavender-gray cloud covering the sun, low in the sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed the flat top of a rock at the lower center of the landscape with his name, the title of the painting, and date: “Autumn – on the Hudson River, J.F Cropsey, London 1860.”

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Sale, Leavitt Art Rooms, New York, 29-30 January 1878, 2nd day, no. 95). (Doll & Richards, Boston, June 1878); sold 1 July 1878 to Stephen Westcott Nickerson, Narraganset Hotel, Providence, Rhode Island.[1] Charles T. Barney [1851-1907], New York.[2] Edward C.J. Runge [1847-1916], New York; (his sale, American Art Association, New York, 9 January 1902, no. 71); purchased by E.A. Rorke. M.J. Hegarty, White Plains, New York, c. 1911; consigned 30 July 1936 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[3] sold 10 May 1943 to Dr. Philip G. Stevens, New Haven, Connecticut,[4] until at least 1944.[5] H. B. Yotnakparian. Polly M. Leavitt, Bangor, Maine. Theodore Leavitt, New York, until at least 1950.[6] (Robert Carlen Galleries, Philadelphia); probably sold 1951 to Irving H. Vogel, Philadelphia.[7] (Wildenstein & Co., New York), by 1954 until 1957.[8] Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Shaye, Detroit, 1958 until at least May 1962.[9] (Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York); sold December 1964 to Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia;[10] gift 1985 to NGA.
[1] Doll & Richards records, box 53, Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C.
[2] J. Eastman Chase, "Some Recollections of Winslow Homer," Harper's Weekly 54 (22 October 1910): 13.
[3] Per 1 November 1995 letter from Melissa De Medeiros, Librarian at M. Knoedler (in NGA curatorial files).
[4] See note 3.
[5] Identified in Winslow Homer (Exh. cat. Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, 1944, no. 13); the exhibition ran from 16 November to 17 December 1944.
[6] Identified in Dramatic Choices: The Theater Collects (Exh. cat. Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1950: no. 31); the exhibition ran from 4 November to 1 December 1950.
[7] This provenance was "unconfirmed, but probable" according to a letter of 16 September 1991 from Abigail Booth Gerdts (in NGA curatorial files). No record of this sale can be found in the Robert Carlen Galleries Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
[8] "Wildenstein & Co. advertisement," Arts Magazine 31 (September 1957): 4.
[9] "American Paintings and Drawings from Michigan Collections," Detroit Institute of Arts, 10 April-6 May 1962.
[10] Invoice dated 29 December 1964 from Marlborough-Gerson to Paul Mellon (in NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1936

  • Winslow Homer Centenary Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1936-1937, no. 16.

1941

  • Exhibition of Paintings by Winslow Homer, Babcock Galleries, New York, 1941, no. 19.

1944

  • Winslow Homer, Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, 1944, no. 13.

1950

  • Dramatic Choices: The Theater Collects, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1950, no. 31.

1961

  • American Painting 1865-1905, The Art Gallery of Toronto; Winnipeg Art Gallery Association; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1961, no. 35.

1962

  • American Paintings and Drawings from Michigan Collections, The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1962, no. 67.

1973

  • Winslow Homer, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Art Institute of Chicago, 1973, no. 38.

1986

  • Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist, repro.

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. 88, repro.

1999

  • An Enduring Legacy: Masterpieces from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1999-2000, no cat.

2005

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

Bibliography

1878

  • "The Annual Sale of American Pictures." New York Evening Post (25 January 1878): 3.

  • "The Sale of American Pictures." New York Evening Post (31 January 1878): 3.

  • "Gossip of Local Art Circles." New York Daily Graphic (16 January 1878): 458.

1910

  • Chase, J. Eastman. "Some Recollections of Winslow Homer." Harper's Weekly 54 (22 October 1910): 13.

1937

  • Pène du Bois, Guy. "Two Exhibitions of Winslow Homer." Magazine of Art 30 (January 1937): 50, repro. 51.

1957

  • Arts Magazine 31 (September 1957): repro. 4 (advertisement).

1959

  • Goodrich, Lloyd. Winslow Homer. New York, 1959: repro. 40.

1961

  • Gardner, Albert Ten Eyck. Winslow Homer, American Artist: His World and His Work. New York, 1961: color repro. 74.

1966

  • Flexner, James Thomas. The World of Winslow Homer, 1836-1910. New York, 1966: color repro. 84-85.

1972

  • Wilmerding, John. Winslow Homer. New York, 1972: 93.

1979

  • Hendricks, Gordon. The Life and Work of Winslow Homer. New York, 1979: 133, detail repro. 127.

1988

  • Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 122, no. 38, color repro.

1990

  • Carren, Rachel Ann. "From Reality to Symbol: Images of Children in the Art of Winslow Homer." 2 vols. Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1990: 1:x, 149-150; 2:repro. 61.

  • Cikovsky, Nicolai, Jr. "Winslow Homer's Unfinished Business." In American Art around 1900: Lectures in Memory of Daniel Fraad. Doreen Bolger and Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., eds. Studies in the History of Art, 37, Symposium Papers 21 (1990): 106, repro. 108.

  • Cikovsky, Nicolai, Jr. "Winslow Homer's Unfinished Business." In American Art around 1900: Lectures in Memory of Daniel Fraad. In Studies in the History of Art 37 (1990): 106, repro. 108.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 204, 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. 88.

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: 318-322, color repro.

1997

  • Alcott, Louisa M. Unge Kvinder, Denmark, 1997, front cover, repro.

2005

  • Goodrich, Lloyd, and Abigail Booth Gerdts. Record of Works by Winslow Homer, vol. 3. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2005, no. 640.

Inscriptions

lower right: HOMER '77

Wikidata ID

Q20188827

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