Author Description

'Winslow Homer' is considered among the greatest American artists of the nineteenth century. This book examines the immensity of Homer's artistic accomplishments, focusing not only on his masterpieces in various media but also on the suites of works on the same subject that reflect the artist's essentially modern practice of thinking and working serially and thematically. The book discusses and reproduces more than two hundred paintings, watercolors, and drawings that span Homer's career, all of which are discussed in entries by Cikovsky and Kelly. It begins with the Civil War paintings that first brought Homer's remarkable artistic mentality to public attention, in which he movingly expressed the profound implications the war held for the nation. Homer's interest in national themes is further explored in his works of the later 1860s and the 1870s, which embraced a wide spectrum of American life. His shift toward more idealized and heroic imagery and his withdrawal to a solitary life at Prout's Neck, Maine, in the 1880s are discussed as turning points leading to the great achievements of his last two decades. After considering his beautiful late watercolors of the Tropics and the Adirondacks, and his monumental Prout's Neck seascapes, the book concludes with a reassessment of the tragic and visionary paintings of his last years.