About This Artwork

Winslow Homer
American, 1836-1910

Coast of Maine, 1893

Oil on canvas
61 x 76.2 cm (24 x 30 in.)
Signed, lower left: "Homer 93"
Arthur Jerome Eddy Memorial Collection, 1931.505

The painter and watercolorist Winslow Homer observed the shoreline of Prout's Neck, Maine, in various weather conditions and seasons after moving there to live in near isolation. While early in his career he had been concerned with figurative art, likely as a result of his work as an illustrator for Harper's Weekly, in Prout's Neck he depicted seascapes void of human life, focusing instead on an emotional approach to nature. His seascapes are larger than his earlier works, the size of the canvases emphasizing the vastness, power, and suspenseful quality of the sea. Homer suggested the violence of water through the sharply diagonal shoreline and vigorous brushwork, the flat areas of color hinting at the abstraction that would emerge in the early 20th century.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Cleveland Museum of Art, Reckoning with Winslow Homer, Sept. 19-Nov. 18, 1990, fig. 14; traveled to Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, Dec. 16, 1990-Feb. 10, 1991; Washington, D.C., Corcoran Museum of Art, Mar.16-May 12, 1991.

Tokyo, ASAHI Shimbun, "Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago"; traveled to Nagaoka, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Apr. 20-May 29, 1994, Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10-July 24, 1994, Yokohama Museum of Art, Aug. 6-Sept. 25, 1994.

Publication History

Milo M. Naeve, “The Edwardian Era and Patrons of American Art at The Art Institute of Chicago: the Birth of a Tradition,” America’s International Exposition of Fine Arts and Antiques, (Lakeside Group, 1988), p. 22, fig. 3.

Judith A. Barter et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998).

Judith A. Barter et al, The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2011), no. 9.

Ownership History

Arthur Jerome Eddy, Chicago, from c. 1893 to 1931; given to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1931.