The Gilded Age in American Art

Evaluation | Curriculum Connections | Resources | Tours 1876 - 1917

Winslow Homer Biography

1836 - Born in Boston, Massachusetts
1854-57 - Apprenticed with lithographer
1856 - Spends a year in Paris. Has contact with French Impressionism. Returns to U.S. with better understanding of light in impressionism, but not really influenced by French art
After 1857 - Works as an illustrator, making many designs for wood-engravings published in Harper's Weekly. Best known for his Civil War subjects
1863 - Begins to paint Civil War scenes
After 1867 - Paints rural farm scenes of the Northeastern United States, children at play, and fashionable resort views featuring mostlywell dressed women. His works celebrate old-fashioned rural values in a nation undergoing rapid change and urbanization.
1873 - Begins to paint watercolors; becomes as important to his art as oils
1881-82 - Lives in the fishing village of Cullercoats on the northeast coast of England. Begins to paint seascapes, focussing on the struggle between humans and nature. These works were heroic and thought provoking, portraying both the beauty and awesome power of nature. They addressed questions of human meaning and mortality during a period of history when people were critically concerned with these issues. Spends summers in Prout's Neck, Maine; winters in Florida, the Bahamas, and Cuba
1910 - Dies in Prout's Neck, Maine