Winslow Homer was born on 24th February 1836 in Boston, Massachusetts to the family of Charles Savage Homer and Henrietta Benson Homer, both of them belonging to the long lines of New Englanders. He was bought up in the environs of Cambridge. His mother was his first art teacher as she herself was an amateur watercolor artist. Homer himself was very close to his mother and had acquired many of traits including her quiet, strong-willed, terse, sociable nature; her dry sense of humor; and her artistic talent.
Homer had once remarked, "You will see, I will live by my watercolors" and indeed he has been a source of great inspiration for many artists. His painting style has been influencing the work of many artists across the globe over so many years. His work is celebrated by one and all.
Winslow Homer is regarded as one of the greatest American painters of the nineteenth century. He briefly studied oil painting in the spring of 1861. In October of the same year, he was sent to the front in Virginia as an artist-correspondent for the new illustrated journal, Harper's Weekly. Homer's earliest Civil War paintings, dating from about 1863, are anecdotal, like his prints. As the war drew to a close, however, such canvases as The Veteran in a New Field and Prisoners from the Front reflect a more profound understanding of the war's impact and meaning. Homer lived in New York and spent a major part of his life designing magazine illustrations. Homer had a fascination with serial imagery, outdoor light, flat and simple forms and free brushwork. Women at work and children enjoying their freedom found regular mentions in his artwork in the 1870s.
By the 1880s, Homer went into extreme solitude and it was during this time that his work picked up some more intensity. He enjoyed isolation and was inspired by seclusion and silence to paint the great themes of his career which are now described as masterpieces: the struggle of people against the sea and the relationship of fragile, transient human life to the timelessness of nature. Such was his style and nature of work that he has been inspiring generations of artist and will continue to do so for decades to come.
From the late 1850s until his death in 1910, Winslow Homer produced a body of work distinguished by its thoughtful expression and its independence from artistic conventions. A man of multiple talents, Homer excelled equally in the arts of illustration, oil painting, and watercolor. Many of his works--depictions of children at play and in school, of farm girls attending to their work, hunters and their prey--have become classic images of nineteenth-century American life. Others speak to more universal themes such as the primal relationship of man to nature.
Highlighting a wide and representative range of Homer's art, this Web feature traces his extraordinary career from the battlefields, farmland, and coastal villages of America, to the North Sea fishing village of Cullercoats, the rocky coast of Maine, the Adirondacks, and the Caribbean, offering viewers the opportunity to experience and appreciate the breadth of his remarkable artistic achievement.
Homer had once remarked, "You will see, I will live by my watercolors" and indeed he has been a source of great inspiration for many artists. His painting style has been influencing the work of many artists across the globe over so many years. His work is celebrated by one and all.
Winslow Homer is regarded as one of the greatest American painters of the nineteenth century. He briefly studied oil painting in the spring of 1861. In October of the same year, he was sent to the front in Virginia as an artist-correspondent for the new illustrated journal, Harper's Weekly. Homer's earliest Civil War paintings, dating from about 1863, are anecdotal, like his prints. As the war drew to a close, however, such canvases as The Veteran in a New Field and Prisoners from the Front reflect a more profound understanding of the war's impact and meaning. Homer lived in New York and spent a major part of his life designing magazine illustrations. Homer had a fascination with serial imagery, outdoor light, flat and simple forms and free brushwork. Women at work and children enjoying their freedom found regular mentions in his artwork in the 1870s.
By the 1880s, Homer went into extreme solitude and it was during this time that his work picked up some more intensity. He enjoyed isolation and was inspired by seclusion and silence to paint the great themes of his career which are now described as masterpieces: the struggle of people against the sea and the relationship of fragile, transient human life to the timelessness of nature. Such was his style and nature of work that he has been inspiring generations of artist and will continue to do so for decades to come.
From the late 1850s until his death in 1910, Winslow Homer produced a body of work distinguished by its thoughtful expression and its independence from artistic conventions. A man of multiple talents, Homer excelled equally in the arts of illustration, oil painting, and watercolor. Many of his works--depictions of children at play and in school, of farm girls attending to their work, hunters and their prey--have become classic images of nineteenth-century American life. Others speak to more universal themes such as the primal relationship of man to nature.
Highlighting a wide and representative range of Homer's art, this Web feature traces his extraordinary career from the battlefields, farmland, and coastal villages of America, to the North Sea fishing village of Cullercoats, the rocky coast of Maine, the Adirondacks, and the Caribbean, offering viewers the opportunity to experience and appreciate the breadth of his remarkable artistic achievement.
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