The Watercolors of Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer's first medium was oil painting, although to make ends meet, he did commercial illustration and chronicled the New York City social scene.

Eventually, Homer withdrew from city life altogether to settle at Prout's Neck on the rocky New England coast.

There he turned to watercolour, in part for financial reasons (watercolours were easier to sell), but the newly popular medium also enabled him to capture his impressions of scenery and landscapes encountered during his many travels with an immediacy and directness impossible in the more time-consuming oils.

Of his more than 700 watercolours, over 140 are reproduced here, dating from the 1870s to the turn of the century and ranging from pastoral to narrative, dramatic to serene.

Miles Unger's text provides insight into the artist's technical mastery of the medium and discusses the importance of Homer's watercolours within the larger body of his work.