Winslow Homer

The Gulf Stream — the sea as American destiny

The greatest American painter of the sea and of solitary human struggle against nature. Largely self-taught, Homer began as a Civil War illustrator and ended as a near-hermit on the Maine coast, painting the Atlantic with an elemental power unmatched in American art. His watercolors revolutionized the medium, and his late oils — men in small boats against vast, indifferent water — turned New England seascape into stark existential drama.

Key works

• The Gulf Stream1899— A lone sailor adrift among sharks — fate as seascape
  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Snap the Whip1872— Barefoot schoolboys — the lost American pastoral
  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• The Fog Warning1885— A dory fisherman racing the coming storm
  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Connections

External