Winslow Homer and His Maine Studio: “Look at nature, work independently, and solve your own problems”

Winslow Homer Studio – Southeast Corner, 2012 ©trentbellphotography

To commemorate the opening of the newly restored Winslow Homer Studio, the Portland Museum of Art will present the exhibition Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine. On view through December 30, 2012, this unique exhibition features 38 major oils, watercolors, and etchings created during Homer’s tenure in the Studio (1883–1910). The works come from museums and private collectors throughout the country, including The Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Many of these works have not been on exhibition in Maine* for a more than a generation and, due to their extraordinary rarity and importance to their institutional owners, will likely not be seen together again for decades to come.

Weatherbeaten explores the range and complexity of Homer’s mature artistic vision which came to fruition at his Prouts Necks studio on the Maine coast. Inspired by the rugged beauty and dramatic weather of this locale, he produced works that revolutionized marine painting in American art and created an iconic and enduring image of the New England coast. The Portland Museum of Art’s painting Weatherbeaten (1894) serves as both the namesake for the exhibition and a quintessential example of the artist’s late work. This image of rough waves crashing against a rocky shore embodies Homer’s ability to capture the specificity of a place, while simultaneously meditating upon the timeless forces of nature.

Winslow Homer
1836 – 1910
Fox Hunt, 1893
oil on canvas
38 x 68 1/2 inches
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Joseph E. Temple Fund. Photo: Barbara Katus.

*We discovered that Homer’s cousin, Augusta, was married to famed sculptor, Saint-Gaudens. Their house in New Hampshire is designed as a National Historic Site and has a home, studios and gardens. Over 100 of his artworks are in the galleries and on the grounds, from heroic public monuments to expressive portrait reliefs, and the gold coins which changed the look of American coinage.