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Winslow Homer In America . . .
An exhibition
of one hundred twenty-five (125) wood engravings
This
exhibition covers both the early years (1857-1866) as well
as the later years following the American Civil War (1867-1887)
with one of the largest and most comprehensive collections
of wood engravings by Winslow Homer.
Homer,
being one of the most celebrated American artists of the
nineteenth century, exhibited frequently at fashionable
venues including the National Academy of Design, the American
Society of Painters, and at prestigious private clubs in
New York such as The Union League Club and Century Club,
as well as at art galleries and auction houses. Today, his
paintings, watercolors, prints and drawings are represented
in prestigious museum and private collections of national
importance.
All
of Homer's most popular illustrations are included in this
exhibition of wood engravings produced over a period of
nearly three decades. Themes chosen by the artist relate
to family and community life before the American Civil War
of 1861-1865 and later, a more somber approach following
the War years.
All
of the prints come complete with interpretive labels, drawn
mainly from written text by the editors of the publications
Ballou's Pictorial and Harper's Weekly. The first illustrations
produced between 1857-1860 show the gifted talent of a young
artists soon to be recognized as one of America's most beloved
illustrators and painters. Between the years of 1861-1866
Homer produced a large number of Civil War illustrations
for Harper's Weekly while living in New York and 'on assignment'
in Virginia as a journalist/illustrator with the troops
at the front.
"The
life of Winslow Homer, as revealed in his works, is a study
worthy of the serious attention of the historian and critic
. . . no American painter (is) so thoroughly national in
style and character."
---William
Howe Downes, 1911
The Life and Works of Winslow Homer
Houghton Mifflin Company
Following
the Civil War in fall of 1866, Homer took his first real
vacation and sailed to Europe to spend nearly a year in
France. While there, he visited the great Exposition Universelle
where two of his paintings had been accepted for exhibition.
Upon his return to New York in November or December of 1867
he immediately began to illustrate scenes for Harper's Weekly,
publishing his first images of Parisian life: Dancing at
the Mabille, Paris, and Dancing at the Casino, both published
in late November 1867. He also produced one of his finest
illustrations Homeward-bound, published by Harper's Weekly
in December 1867. The following year he illustrated Art
Students and Copyists in the Louvre Gallery, Paris which
he made from sketches brought back with him.
Homer's
illustrations after 1868 portray a much more serious outlook-showing
a changed America with class and economic separations, the
toil of factory work (The Morning Bell), and budding of
lifestyles among the new leisure class. Homer's themes reveal
a man seeking solitude and calm, yet he remains patient
and very much at home with the rural activities of New England.
His illustrations of 1868-1870 depict the new urban life-style
America's leisure class vacationing in the country and at
beachside resorts (On the Bluff at Long Branch, at the Bathing
Hour). The works after 1871 focus largely on rural life
and the activities of youth (See-Saw - Gloucester, Massachusetts,
Waiting for a Bite, Gloucester Harbor, and Snap-the-Whip).
