Winslow Homer (1836 – 1910) was was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a pre-eminent figure in American art.
He was largely self-taught, and began his career working as a commercial illustrator. He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works, though it’s for his skill with watercolour that he’s best known now, and the reason that I personally admire his work. I spent a decade of my own career dedicated to watercolour.
Homer was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1836, the second of the three children, all sons, of Henrietta Benson and Charles Savage Homer. His artistic education consisted chiefly of his apprenticeship to the Boston commercial lithographer John H. Bufford, and a few lessons in painting from Frédéric Rondel after that. Following his apprenticeship, Homer worked as a free-lance illustrator for such magazines as Harper's Weekly.
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| The Bathers wood engraving for Harper's Weekly |
Returning to America in 1883, he settled at Prout's Neck, Maine, where he would live for the rest of his life. He continued to travel widely, to the Adirondacks, Canada, Bermuda, Florida, and the Caribbean, in all those places painting the watercolors upon which much of his later fame would be based. In 1890 he painted the first of the series of seascapes at Prout's Neck that were the most admired of his late paintings in oil. Homer died in his Prout's Neck studio in 1910.
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| 1836 Snap the Whip oil on canvas | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| 1863 Home Sweet Home oil on canvas |
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| 1865 the Veteran in a New Field oil on canvas |
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| 1870 Eagle Head, Manchester, Massachusetts |
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| 1870 The Dinner Horn oil |
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| 1873 Dad's Coming oil on wood |
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| 1873 Gloucester Harbor oil on canvas |
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| 1873-76 Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) oil on canvas |
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| 1875 Sailing the Catboat watercolour and gouache |
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| 1874 The Sick Chicken |
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| 1876 Song of the Lark |
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| 1877 Camp Fire oil |
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| 1877 Dressing for the Carnival oil on canvas |
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| 1878 The Milk Maid watercolour |
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| 1881 Fisherwomen, Cullercoats watercolour |
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| 1881 Perils of the Sea watercolour |
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| 1881 Watching the Tempest watercolour | |
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| 1881-82 Sparrow Hall oil on canvas |
