Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer - The Rustics, 1874, oil on canvas, private collection (click photo for larger image)Winslow Homer - The Lookout- All's Well, 1896, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (click photo for larger image)Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was an American painter whose works, particularly those on marine subjects, are among the most powerful and expressive of late 19th-century American art. His mastery of sketching and watercolor lends to his oil paintings the invigorating spontaneity of direct observation from nature. His subjects, often deceptively simple on the surface, dealt in their most serious moments with the theme of mankind’s efforts to establish his humanness in the face of an indifferent universe. In his later years, however, he abandoned the human subject entirely--and focused on land- and seascapes.