Winslow Homer (1836-1910)
At the age of 19, Homer was apprenticed to J.
H. Bufford's lithographic firm in Boston.
Although the superior quality of his work earned him more and more responsibility, he
found the work stifling and tedious, and upon attaining his majority he left the shop to
become a freelance illustrator. In 1859 Homer moved to New York City, where he studied
briefly at the National Academy of
Design, took a few painting lessons with Frederic Rondel, and set up a studio
at the 10th Street Studio Building. For the next 17 years, his major source of income came
from drawings for illustrated weekly magazines, such as Harper's Weekly, Frank Leslie's
Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, and Appleton's Journal. He devoted increasing attention to
painting, however, and in 1865 was elected a member of the National
Academy of Design and was further
distinguished by the exhibition of his Prisoners at the Front in the Paris Exposition of
1866. Homer went to Paris that year, but little is known of his activities during the ten
months he spent abroad. Domestic travel for the next 15 years included trips to the White
Mountains in the summers of 1868 and 1869, the Adirondacks, and Gloucester,
Massachusetts, in 1873. It
is significant that, when Homer returned to Europe in 1881, he did not go back to Paris,
which was bursting with American art students at the ateliers.
He chose, instead, the
small fishing community of Tynemouth, on the cold gray northeast coast of England.
Following his return home in 1882, Homer moved from his New York studio to the rugged
coast of Prout's Neck, Maine. For the remainder of his life this was his home, though he
continued seasonal travels to Quebec and the Adirondacks in the summer months, and to
Florida, Bermuda, and Nassau in the Bahamas in the winter.
He exhibited almost annually at the Brooklyn Art Association, and the National Academy of Design. He was a member of the Century Association from 1865 until his death on September 29, 1910. He is buried in a family plot in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Gravestone
Artist Photo Credit
Charles O. Vogel
References