The Artist's Studio in an Afternoon Fog
1894
24 x 30 1/4 in. (61 x 76.8 cm)
Winslow Homer
United States
(Boston, MA, 1836 - 1910, Prout's Neck, ME)
Object Type:
Painting
Medium and Support:
Oil on canvas
Credit Line:
R. T. Miller Fund
Accession Number:
1941.32
Location: Currently on view
In the course of his long and distinguished career, Winslow Homer shifted his focus from robust descriptions of American life to studies of interaction between man and the powerful forces of nature, particularly the ocean. This evocative painting of his studio at his family’s compound on the coast of Maine in Prout’s Neck, near Portland, is considered one of Homer’s most masterful works.
[Gallery label text, 2007]
A foggy day on the coastal peninsula of Prout's Neck, Maine, inspired Winslow Homer to paint one of his most elegant and contemplative works. His studio and family home stand silhouetted between the darker cliffs in the foreground and the paler sky. The painting's composition balances strong diagonal and horizontal elements in the lower half with a monolithic sky punctuated by a circle of sun.
Homer was known for his many paintings of rural America, as well as his illustrations of the Civil War. In 1883, Homer left New York City, where he had been living, and settled permanently in Prout's Neck. During his years there, he produced some of the most thrilling marine paintings in the history of American art.
[Gallery label text, 2006]