Winslow Homer Winslow Homer ( February 24 , 1836 – September 29 , 1910 ) was an American landscape painter and printmaker , best known for his marine subjects . He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th - century America and a preeminent figure in American art . Largely self - taught , Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator . He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium . He also worked extensively in watercolor , creating a fluid and prolific oeuvre , primarily chronicling his working vacations . Early life . Born in Boston , Massachusetts in 1836 , Homer was the second of three sons of Charles Savage Homer and Henrietta Benson Homer , both from long lines of New Englanders . His mother was a gifted amateur watercolorist and Homer ' s first teacher , and she and her son had a close relationship throughout their lives . Homer took on many of her traits , including her quiet , strong - willed , terse , sociable nature ; her dry sense of humor ; and her artistic talent . Homer had a happy childhood , growing up mostly in then rural Cambridge , Massachusetts . He was an average student , but his art talent was evident in his early years . Homer ' s father was a volatile , restless businessman who was always looking to " make a killing " . When Homer was thirteen , Charles gave up the hardware store business to seek a fortune in the California gold rush . When that failed , Charles left his family and went to Europe to raise capital for other get - rich - quick schemes that didn ' t materialize . After Homer ' s high school graduation , his father saw a newspaper advertisement and arranged for an apprenticeship . Homer ' s apprenticeship at the age of 19 to J . H . Bufford , a Boston commercial lithographer , was a formative but " treadmill experience " . He worked repetitively on sheet music covers and other commercial work for two years . By 1857 , his freelance career was underway after he turned down an offer to join the staff of " Harper ' s Weekly " . " From the time I took my nose off that lithographic stone " , Homer later stated , " I have had no master , and never shall have any . " Homer ' s career as an illustrator lasted nearly twenty years . He contributed illustrations of Boston life and rural New England life to magazines such as " Ballou ' s Pictorial " and " Harper ' s Weekly " at a time when the market for illustrations was growing rapidly and fads and fashions were changing quickly . His early works , mostly commercial engravings of urban and country social scenes , are characterized by clean outlines , simplified forms , dramatic contrast of light and dark , and lively figure groupings — qualities that remained important throughout his career . His quick success was mostly due to this strong understanding of graphic design and also to the adaptability of his designs to wood engraving . Homer ' s studio . In 1859 , he opened a studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City , the artistic and publishing capital of the United States . Until 1863 , he attended classes at the National Academy of Design , and studied briefly with Frédéric Rondel , who taught him the basics of painting . In only about a year of self - training , Homer was producing excellent oil work . His mother tried to raise family funds to send him to Europe for further study but instead " Harper ' s " sent Homer to the front lines of the American Civil War ( 1861 – 1865 ) , where he sketched battle scenes and camp life , the quiet moments as well as the chaotic ones . His initial sketches were of the camp , commanders , and army of the famous Union officer , Major General George B . McClellan , at the banks of the Potomac River in October , 1861 . Although the drawings did not get much attention at the time , they mark Homer ' s expanding skills from illustrator to painter . Like with his urban scenes , Homer also illustrated women during war time , and showed the effects of the war on the home front . The war work was dangerous and exhausting . Back at his studio , however , Homer would regain his strength and re - focus his artistic vision . He set to work on a series of war - related paintings based on his sketches , among them " Sharpshooter on Picket Duty " ( 1862 ) , " Home , Sweet Home " ( 1863 ) , and " Prisoners from the Front " ( 1866 ) . He exhibited paintings of these subjects every year at the National Academy of Design from 1863 to 1866 . " Home , Sweet Home " was shown at the National Academy to particular critical acclaim ; it was quickly sold and the artist was consequently elected an Associate Academician , then a full Academician in 1865 . During this time , he also continued to sell his illustrations to periodicals such as " Our Young Folks " and " Frank Leslie ' s Chimney Corner " . After the war , Homer turned his attention primarily to scenes of childhood and young women , reflecting nostalgia for simpler times , both his own and the nation as a whole . His " Crossing the Pasture " ( 1871 – 1872 ) depicts two boys who idealize brotherhood with the hope of a united future after the war that pitted brother against brother . Homer was also interested in postwar subject matter that conveyed the silent tension between two communities seeking to understand their future . His oil painting A Visit from the Old Mistress ( 1876 ) shows an encounter between a group of four freed slaves and their former mistress . The formal equivalence between the standing figures suggests the balance that the nation hoped to find in the difficult years of Reconstruction . Homer composed this painting from sketches he had made while traveling through Virginia . At nearly the beginning of his painting career , the twenty - seven - year - old Homer demonstrated a maturity of feeling , depth of perception , and mastery of technique which was immediately recognized . His realism was objective , true to nature , and emotionally controlled . One critic wrote , " Winslow Homer is one of those few young artists who make a decided impression of their power with their very first contributions to the Academy . . . He at this moment wields a better pencil , models better , colors better , than many whom , were it not improper , we could mention as regular contributors to the Academy . " And of " Home , Sweet Home " specifically , " There is no clap - trap about it . The delicacy and strength of emotion which reign throughout this little picture are not surpassed in the whole exhibition . " " It is a work of real feeling , soldiers in camp listening to the evening band , and thinking of the wives and darlings far away . There is no strained effect in it , no sentimentality , but a hearty , homely actuality , broadly , freely , and simply worked out . " Early landscapes and watercolors . After exhibiting at the National Academy of Design , Homer finally traveled to Paris , France in 1867 where he remained for a year . His most praised early painting , " Prisoners from the Front " , was on exhibit at the Exposition Universelle in Paris at the same time . He did not study formally but he practiced landscape painting while continuing to work for " Harper ' s " , depicting scenes of Parisian life . Homer painted about a dozen small paintings during the stay . Although he arrived in France at a time of new fashions in art , Homer ' s main subject for his paintings was peasant life , showing more of an alignment with the established French Barbizon school and the artist Millet than with newer artists Manet and Courbet . Though his interest in depicting natural light parallels that of the early impressionists , there is no evidence of direct influence as he was already a plein - air painter in America and had already evolved a personal style which was much closer to Manet than Monet . Unfortunately , Homer was very private about his personal life and his methods ( even denying his first biographer any personal information or commentary ) , but his stance was clearly one of independence of style and a devotion to American subjects . As his fellow artist Eugene Benson wrote , Homer believed that artists " should never look at pictures " but should " stutter in a language of their own . " Throughout the 1870s , Homer continued painting mostly rural or idyllic scenes of farm life , children playing , and young adults courting , including " Country School " ( 1871 ) and " The Morning Bell " ( 1872 ) . In 1875 , Homer quit working as a commercial illustrator and vowed to survive on his paintings and watercolors alone . Despite his excellent critical reputation , his finances continued to remain precarious . His popular 1872 painting " Snap - the - Whip " was exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , as was one of his finest and most famous paintings " Breezing Up " ( 1876 ) . Of his work at this time , Henry James wrote : Many disagreed with James . " Breezing Up " , Homer ' s iconic painting of a father and three boys out for a spirited sail , received wide praise . The " New York Tribune " wrote , " There is no picture in this exhibition , nor can we remember when there has been a picture in any exhibition , that can be named alongside this . " Visits to Petersburg , Virginia around 1876 resulted in paintings of rural African American life . The same straightforward sensibility which allowed Homer to distill art from these potentially sentimental subjects also yielded the most unaffected views of African American life at the time , as illustrated in " Dressing for the Carnival " ( 1877 ) and " A Visit from the Old Mistress " ( 1876 ) . In 1877 , Homer exhibited for the first time at the Boston Art Club with the oil painting , " An Afternoon Sun " , ( owned by the Artist ) . From 1877 through 1909 , Homer exhibited often at the Boston Art Club . Works on paper , both drawings and watercolors , were frequently exhibited by Homer beginning in 1882 . A most unusual sculpture by the Artist , " Hunter with Dog - Northwoods " , was exhibited in 1902 . By that year , Homer had switched his primary Gallery from the Boston based Doll and Richards to the New York City based Knoedler & Co . Homer became a member of The Tile Club , a group of artists and writers who met frequently to exchange ideas and organize outings for painting , as well as foster the creation of decorative tiles . For a short time , he designed tiles for fireplaces . Homer ' s nickname in The Tile Club was " The Obtuse Bard " . Other well known Tilers were painters William Merritt Chase , Arthur Quartley , and the sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens . Homer started painting with watercolors on a regular basis in 1873 during a summer stay in Gloucester , Massachusetts . From the beginning , his technique was natural , fluid and confident , demonstrating his innate talent for a difficult medium . His impact would be revolutionary . Here , again , the critics were puzzled at first , " A child with an ink bottle could not have done worse . " Another critic said that Homer " made a sudden and desperate plunge into water color painting " . But his watercolors proved popular and enduring , and sold more readily , improving his financial condition considerably . They varied from highly detailed ( " Blackboard " – 1877 ) to broadly impressionistic ( " Schooner at Sunset " – 1880 ) . Some watercolors were made as preparatory sketches for oil paintings ( as for " Breezing Up " ) and some as finished works in themselves . Thereafter , he seldom traveled without paper , brushes and water based paints . As a result of disappointments with women or from some other emotional turmoil , Homer became reclusive in the late 1870s , no longer enjoying urban social life and living instead in Gloucester . For a while , he even lived in secluded Eastern Point Light house ( with the keeper ' s family ) . In re - establishing his love of the sea , Homer found a rich source of themes while closely observing the fishermen , the sea , and the marine weather . After 1880 , he rarely featured genteel women at leisure , focusing instead on working women . England . Homer spent two years ( 1881 – 1882 ) in the English coastal village of Cullercoats , Tyne and Wear . Many of the paintings at Cullercoats took as their subjects working men and women and their daily heroism , imbued with a solidity and sobriety which was new to Homer ' s art , presaging the direction of his future work . He wrote , " The women are the working bees . Stout hardy creatures . " His palette became constrained and sober ; his paintings larger , more ambitious , and more deliberately conceived and executed . His subjects more universal and less nationalistic , more heroic by virtue of his unsentimental rendering . Although he moved away from the spontaneity and bright innocence of the American paintings of the 1860s and 1870s , Homer found a new style and vision which carried his talent into new realms . Maine and maturity . Back in the U . S . in November 1882 , Homer showed his English watercolors in New York . Critics noticed the change in style at once , " He is a very different Homer from the one we knew in days gone by " , now his pictures " touch a far higher plane . . . They are works of High Art . " Homer ' s women were no longer " dolls who flaunt their millinery " but " sturdy , fearless , fit wives and mothers of men " who are fully capable of enduring the forces and vagaries of nature alongside their men . In 1883 , Homer moved to Prouts Neck , Maine ( in Scarborough ) and lived at his family ' s estate in the remodeled carriage house just seventy - five feet from the ocean . During the rest of the mid - 1880s , Homer painted his monumental sea scenes . In " Undertow " ( 1886 ) , depicting the dramatic rescue of two female bathers by two male lifeguards , Homer ' s figures " have the weight and authority of classical figures " . In " Eight Bells " ( 1886 ) , two sailors carefully take their bearings on deck , calmly appraising their position and by extension , their relationship with the sea ; they are confident in their seamanship but respectful of the forces before them . Other notable paintings among these dramatic struggle - with - nature images are " Banks Fisherman " , " The Gulf Stream " , " Rum Cay " , " Mending the Nets " , and " Searchlight , Harbor Entrance , Santiago de Cuba " . Some of these he repeated as etchings . At fifty years of age , Homer had become a " Yankee Robinson Crusoe , cloistered on his art island " and " a hermit with a brush " . These paintings established Homer , as the " New York Evening Post " wrote , " in a place by himself as the most original and one of the strongest of American painters . " But despite his critical recognition , Homer ' s work never achieved the popularity of traditional Salon pictures or of the flattering portraits by John Singer Sargent . Many of the sea pictures took years to sell and " Undertow " only earned him $ 400 . In these years , Homer received emotional sustenance primarily from his mother , brother Charles , and sister - in - law Martha ( " Mattie " ) . After his mother ' s death , Homer became a " parent " for his aging but domineering father and Mattie became his closest female intimate . In the winters of 1884 - 5 , Homer ventured to warmer locations in Florida , Cuba , and the Bahamas , and did a series of watercolors as part of a commission for " Century Magazine " . He replaced the turbulent green storm - tossed sea of Prouts Neck with the sparkling blue skies of the Caribbean , and the hardy New Englanders with the leisurely Black natives , further expanding his watercolor technique , subject matter , and palette . During this trip he painted Children Under a Palm Tree for Lady Blake , the Governor ' s wife . His tropical stays inspired and refreshed him in much the same way as Paul Gauguin ' s trips to Tahiti . " A Garden in Nassau " ( 1885 ) is one of the best examples of these watercolors . Once again , his freshness and originality were praised by critics , but proved too advanced for the traditional art buyers and he " looked in vain for profits . " Homer lived frugally , however , and fortunately , his affluent brother Charles provided financial help when needed . Additionally , Homer found inspiration in a number of summer trips to the North Woods Club , near the hamlet of Minerva , New York in the Adirondack Mountains . It was on these fishing vacations that he experimented freely with the watercolor medium , producing works of the utmost vigor and subtlety , hymns to solitude , nature , and to outdoor life . Homer doesn ' t shrink from the savagery of blood sports nor the struggle for survival . The color effects are boldly and facilely applied . In terms of quality and invention , Homer ' s achievements as a watercolorist are unparalleled : " Homer had used his singular vision and manner of painting to create a body of work that has not been matched . " In 1893 , Homer painted one of his most famous " Darwinian " works , " The Fox Hunt " , which depicts a flock of starving crows descending on a fox slowed by deep snow . This was Homer ' s largest painting and it was immediately purchased by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts , his first painting in a major American museum collection . In " Huntsman and Dogs " ( 1891 ) , a lone , impassive hunter , with his yelping dogs at his side , heads home after a hunt , with deer skins slung over his right shoulder . Another late work , " The Gulf Stream " ( 1899 ) , shows a Black sailor adrift in a damaged boat , surrounded by sharks and an impending maelstrom . By 1900 , Homer finally reached financial stability , as his paintings fetched good prices from museums and he began to receive rents from real estate properties . He also became free of the responsibilities of caring for his father who had died two years earlier . Homer continued producing excellent watercolors , mostly on trips to Canada and the Caribbean . Other late works include sporting scenes such as " Right and Left " , as well as seascapes absent of human figures , mostly of waves crashing against rocks in varying light . In his last decade , he at times followed the advice he gave a student artist in 1907 , " Leave rocks for your old age — they ' re easy " . Homer died in 1910 at the age of 74 in his Prouts Neck studio and was interred in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge , Massachusetts . His painting , " Shooting the Rapids , Saguenay River " , remains unfinished . His Prouts Neck studio , a National Historic Landmark , is now owned by the Portland Museum of Art , which offers tours . Influence . Homer never taught in a school or privately , as did Thomas Eakins , but his works strongly influenced succeeding generations of American painters for their direct and energetic interpretation of man ' s stoic relationship to an often neutral and sometimes harsh wilderness . Robert Henri called Homer ' s work an " integrity of nature . " American illustrator and teacher Howard Pyle revered Homer and encouraged his students to study him . His student and fellow illustrator , N . C . Wyeth ( and through him Andrew Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth ) , shared the influence and appreciation , even following Homer to Maine for inspiration . The elder Wyeth ’ s respect for his antecedent was " intense and absolute , " and can be observed in his early work " Mowing " ( 1907 ) . Perhaps Homer ' s austere individualism is best captured in his admonition to artists : U . S . stamp . In 1962 , the U . S . Post Office released a commemorative stamp honoring Winslow Homer . Homer ' s famous oil painting " Breezing Up " , now hanging in the National Gallery in Washington DC , was chosen as the image for the design of this issue . On August 12 , 2010 , The Postal Service issued a 44 - cent commemorative stamp featuring Homer ' s " Boys in a Pasture " at the APS Stamp Show in Richmond , Virginia . This stamp was the ninth to be issued in a series entitled " American Treasures " . The original painting is part of the Hayden Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston . Gallery . Unlike many artists who were well known for working in only one art medium , Winslow Homer was prominent in a variety of art media , as in the following examples :