Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer began as a magazine illustrator covering the Civil War for Harper’s Weekly, which taught him to compose fast and read a scene quickly. Those habits never left the paintings.

The middle period is bright and outdoor: children in fields, croquet games, summer light. Then came two years at Cullercoats on the English coast, watching fishing communities work in bad weather, and everything changed. The figures got heavier, the sea got serious.

From 1883 he lived at Prouts Neck in Maine and painted the Atlantic hitting rock, often with no figures at all. The watercolours made in the Adirondacks, Florida and the Caribbean are looser and, to many painters, the best thing he did. He worked alone, avoided the art world, and sold steadily without needing it.