Winslow Homer

American, 1836 - 1910

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We look onto two black-headed ducks twisting and flailing midair against a slate-gray landscape in this horizontal painting. The silvery white body of the bird to our left faces us as its neck twists to our left, its black wings extended. The bird to our right falls with its head facing down, its gray wings partially contracted and its legs splayed. The landscape behind them is made up of a sliver of golden amber along the top edge above three wider bands of steel gray that darken toward the bottom of the canvas. A spray of turquoise near the bottom center of the painting indicates that the gray bands are cresting waves. Seen in the distance beyond the feet of the left bird, a gray smudge suggests smoke obscuring a man wearing a gray garment and vivid orange cap. His elbows are raised, presumably holding a shotgun. He sits in a long brown canoe that rides near the crest of the middle wave.
Winslow Homer, Right and Left, 1909, oil on canvas, Gift of the Avalon Foundation, 1951.8.1

Right and Left

Winslow Homer · 1909 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1951.8.1

Winslow Homer, Red Shirt, Homosassa, Florida, 1904, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel, 1975.92.13

Red Shirt, Homosassa, Florida

Winslow Homer · 1904 · watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1975.92.13

A white boat with sails lowered floats in an aquamarine-blue ocean under a pale, sapphire-blue sky in this horizontal watercolor painting. To our right of center, the boat floats with its right, starboard side facing us and the bow angled slightly away. The white sails bunch up under the lowered, horizontal booms just above the top of the boat. The masts and rigging extend off the top of the composition. A group of a few people are gathered in the bow, on the far side of the sails. They are painted loosely but appear to have brown skin and red or black clothing. Waves lap against the side of the boat. To our left, an island or sliver of land with three palm trees deep in the distance lines the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. The water and sky are painted with layers of pale washes. The artist signed and dated the work in the lower left corner with dark paint: “HOMER KEY WEST 1903.”
Winslow Homer, Key West, Hauling Anchor, 1903, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel, 1975.92.9

Key West, Hauling Anchor

Winslow Homer · 1903 · watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1975.92.9

Charcoal-gray clouds fill most of the sky over a turquoise-blue body of water in this horizontal watercolor painting. The gray clouds on the left become more blue as they move to the right. The water is framed by low hills sloping down from both sides, which are painted in cinnamon and dark brown with touches of forest green and topped with a few slender, windblown trees. Several black rocks form a curve along the lower right side of a cove directly in front of us. Loose strokes of brown, tan, and pale blue fill the lower right corner below them. On the horizon, at the center of the composition, is a dark gray finger of land with a tiny steamship drifting by, smoke rising from its two smokestacks. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “Homer 1901.”
Winslow Homer, The Coming Storm, 1901, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel, 1975.92.3

The Coming Storm

Winslow Homer · 1901 · watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1975.92.3

Winslow Homer, The Rise, 1900, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel, 1975.92.14

The Rise

Winslow Homer · 1900 · watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1975.92.14

We look across a coral-pink beach that curves around a royal-blue bay, under a glimmering, pale blue sky in this horizontal watercolor landscape. The area of the beach closest to us is cast under a pale, plum-purple shadow. The beach curves away from us and to the right, like a backward C. At the curve, a short distance from us, a bank of emerald-green vegetation and a scrubby, dark green tree leads back to a low, grassy hill. A pair of two-story buildings with oyster-white walls and bright white roofs perch on the spit of land opposite us, across the water. Pale pink boats are pulled up onto the beach in front of and to our left of the buildings. The buildings and the green hill reflect in the water, which laps against the sand closest to us with bands of azure blue. More loosely painted buildings line the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. Two brick-red smudges to our left could be people standing at the water’s edge in the distance. The sky above has puffy white clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The artist signed the painting in the lower left, “HOMER.” In the lower right, the location and date are written in dark gray, “Salt Kettle Dec 1899.”
Winslow Homer, Salt Kettle, Bermuda, 1899, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel, 1975.92.15

Salt Kettle, Bermuda

Winslow Homer · 1899 · watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1975.92.15

A young woman with flushed, peachy skin stands on a rocky shoreline with a fishing net slung over one shoulder in this horizontal painting. Her body faces us, and she looks off and down to our right. Her left hand, to our right, is planted on her hip, and she clutches the gray net with her other hand. Her head tips toward us as her chin tucks back toward her shoulder. She has a round jaw, a straight nose, and her pink lips are set in a line. Her brown hair is pulled back and up, and bangs sweep across her forehead. Her ash-brown shirt has white bands echoing the neckline, across the waist, and around the hems of the elbow-length sleeves. Her skirt is painted with strokes of mauve pink and silvery gray. A stiff breeze sweeps the skirt to our left and reveals a glimpse of red stockings over sturdy gray shoes. The dark shoreline angles from the lower left corner to halfway up the right edge of the composition. White water breaks over boulders in the surf beyond. Light reflects brightly along the horizon, which comes just over halfway up the painting. A white bird flies in the pewter-gray sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in red in the lower right corner, “Homer 1897.”
Winslow Homer, A Light on the Sea, 1897, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.48

A Light on the Sea

Winslow Homer · 1897 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.79.48

Winslow Homer, Casting, Number Two, 1894, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel, 1975.92.2

Casting, Number Two

Winslow Homer · 1894 · watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1975.92.2

A buck jerks to the right as it leaps toward us, over a boulder and away from a rolling river in this horizontal watercolor painting. The buck is just right of center, and his body scissors, presumably as a gunshot lands. His curling horns nearly meet in an oval overhead, and one front leg is pulled up. The river is painted with tones of spruce green and sapphire, topaz, and celestial blue. The black silhouettes of two animals, either more deer or dogs, are in the distance to the right, and a white puff is along the far bank to the left. The forested background is painted broadly with tones of earthy green, tan, and smoky blue. The artist signed and dated the watercolor in the lower left corner, “Oct 12 1892 Homer.”
Winslow Homer, A Good Shot, Adirondacks, 1892, watercolor on wove paper, Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel, 1975.92.5

A Good Shot, Adirondacks

Winslow Homer · 1892 · watercolor on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1975.92.5

A young man with a peachy, ruddy complexion lies on his stomach in a wooden rowboat on a river, reaching forward to grasp the horn of a stag almost completely submerged in the rippling water with one hand. On the opposite riverbank, gold, rust, and scarlet-red trees span the width of this horizontal painting. The boy’s arms straddle the stern of the boat so one holds the antler with his right hand, closer to us, while the other clutches a rope with a loop at the end. He turns his face, mouth agape and cheeks flushed, over his right shoulder to look to our left, at a dog swimming toward the boat. The dog has white and caramel-brown markings, with dark brown ears. The boy wears earth-brown clothing and the front of his wide-brimmed hat is pushed up to reveal dark eyes and sable-brown bangs and brows. The stag and dog are between us and the boat, and are surrounded by thick brushstrokes of parchment white to create ripples in the forest-green water. Only the open muzzle, part of the eye, and the tips of the stag’s antlers are above the water’s surface. To our right, a bare, fallen tree lies along the far riverbank parallel to the boat. The boat and water fill the lower half of the scene and the autumn trees fill the upper half. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the lower right, “Winslow Homer 1892.”
Winslow Homer, Hound and Hunter, 1892, oil on canvas, Gift of Stephen C. Clark, 1947.11.1

Hound and Hunter

Winslow Homer · 1892 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1947.11.1

Bibliography

1911

  • Downes, William Howe. The Life and Works of Winslow Homer. Boston, 1911.

1944

  • Goodrich, Lloyd. Winslow Homer. New York, 1944.

1961

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

1966

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

1979

  • Hendricks, Gordon. The Life and Work of Winslow Homer. New York, 1979.

1989

  • Cikovsky, Nicolai, Jr. Winslow Homer. New York, 1989.

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: 300-301.