Winslow Homer

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1836 and growing up in Cambridge, Winslow Homer became one of the all-time leading figures in American art, known for his marine genre paintings and for his espousing of realism, especially of American life. From the 1880s until his death in 1910, his work was focused on issues of mortality and the forces of nature such as violent storms at sea. Between 1884 and 1889, he did numerous etchings of his own paintings and watercolors.

Homer had no formal artistic training until he was apprenticed to a lithographer, J.H. Bufford, but Homer disliked lithography and got work as an illustrator for Ballou’s Pictorial. He also studied at the National Academy of Design where Frederick Rondel was a major influence, but during the early years of his career, illustration was his “bread and butter.”