Winslow Homer Biography

Homer Winslow was an American painter from New England, best known for realistic and sometimes haunting oils and watercolors of workers, marine scenes and the power of nature. A natural artist and largely self-taught, Winslow began his career as a lithographer’s apprentice in Boston in 1855. He began working as a freelance illustrator, and by 1859 had opened a studio in New York. Between 1859 and 1867 Winslow Homer worked regularly for Harper’s Weekly, and his illustrations from the front lines of the Civil War gave him a national reputation. During his career Homer traveled to Europe, lived in a fishing village in England for two years and spent time in the Caribbean and in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, but he made his home at Prouts Neck, on the coast of Maine. Considered a master in the use of light (especially in watercolors) and an important figure in American Realism, Homer’s most famous paintings include Breezing Up (1876), Undertow (1886), The Fox Hunt (1893) and The Gulf Stream (1899).