A revelatory exploration of Winslow Homer’s engagement with photography, shedding new light on his celebrated paintings and works on paper One of the greatest American painters of the 19th century, Winslow Homer (1836–1910) also maintained a deep engagement with photography throughout his career. Focusing on the important, yet often-overlooked, role that photography played in Homer’s art, this volume exposes Homer’s own experiments with the camera (he first bought one in 1882). It also explores how the medium of photography and the larger visual economy influenced his work as a painter, watercolorist, and printmaker at a moment when new print technologies inundated the public with images. Frank Goodyear and Dana Byrd demonstrate that photography offered Homer new ways of seeing and representing the world, from his early commercial engravings sourced from contemporary photographs to the complex relationship between his late-career paintings of life in the Bahamas, Florida, and Cuba and the emergent trend of tourist photography. The authors argue that Homer’s understanding of the camera’s ability to create an image that is simultaneously accurate and capable of deception was vitally important to his artistic practice in all media. Richly illustrated and full of exciting new discoveries, Winslow Homer and the Camera is a long-overdue examination of the ways in which photography shaped the vision of one of America’s most original painters.

Exceptional works ranging from charming country scenes to dramatic, emotionally charged subjects: The Artist's Studio in an Afternoon Fog, Dad's Coming, The Gale, Girl with Laurel, Peach Blossoms, School Time, Snap the Whip, A Summer Night, Sunlight on the Coast, Weatherbeaten, West Point, Prout's Neck, and more.

An illustrated analysis of the life and paintings of the American artist describing the influences on the various periods of his artistic development

American painter Winslow Homer (1836–1910) created some of the most breathtaking and influential watercolors in the history of the medium. This handsome volume provides a comprehensive look at Homer’s technical and artistic practice as a watercolorist, and at the experiences that shaped his remarkable development. Focusing on 25 rarely seen watercolors from the Art Institute’s collection, along with 75 other related watercolors, gouaches, drawings, and paintings––including many of the artist’s characteristic subjects––the book proposes a new understanding of Homer’s techniques as they evolved over his career. Accessibly written essays consider each of the featured works in detail, examining the relationship between monochrome drawing and watercolor and the artist’s lifelong interest in new optical and color theories. In particular, they show how his sojourn in England—where he encountered leading British marine watercolorists and the dynamic avant-garde art scene—precipitated an abrupt change in technique and subject matter upon his return home. Conservators address the fragility of these watercolors, which are prone to fading due to light exposure, and demonstrate, through pioneering research on Homer’s pigments and computer-assisted imaging, how the works have changed over time. Several of Homer’s greatest watercolors are digitally “restored,” providing an exhilarating glimpse of the original impact of Homer’s groundbreaking color experiments.

"Published in conjunction with the exhibition, Winslow Homer and the poetics of place, June 5 - September 6, 2010, which was organized by the Portland Museum of Art, Maine." -- p. 71.

The Metropolitan’s renowned American Wing is where the Museum’s unsurpassed collection of American fine and decorative art is on permanent public display, from masterpieces of painting, sculpture, and drawing to exquisite examples of the finest American furniture, silver, glass, ceramics, and textiles. This handsome volume presents an overview of the collection and provides an informative walk through the American Wing’s richly furnished period rooms and stunning architectural displays. These include the magnificent marble façade of the Branch Bank of the United States—the entrance to the original American Wing when it opened in 1924—and the restored living room of a Frank Lloyd Wright prairie-style house. The comprehensive survey of paintings and sculpture begins with early colonial portraiture and from there follows the emergence and development of a national fine-arts tradition, including significant movements and genres such as the Hudson River School, neoclassical sculpture, and American Impressionism. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) devoted much of his life to a study of the ocean and the people whose lives were intertwined with it. This book is the first to focus on the full range of Homer's coastal subjects, with thirty-six reproductions of his most powerful works. Carl Little's essay discusses Homer's development as a painter; quotations from writers such as Homer scholar Philip C. Beam and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins add a further dimension to the thorough and enlightening text. Third printing.

"Exhibition catalogue on the work of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington with a technical study of the objects"--