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After the Hurricane, Bahamas

Watercolor, boat debris and dark skinned man lie on beach, dark sky in background.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Watercolor, boat debris and dark skinned man lie on beach, dark sky in background.

Date:

1899

Artist:

Winslow Homer
American, 1836-1910

About this artwork

Revered as America’s master of watercolor, Winslow Homer did not begin working in the medium until the mature age of thirty-seven. As a watercolorist, Homer adapted his practice to the diverse locales he visited. His sojourns in the tropics took him to the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cuba, and various locations in Florida. In each new environment, the self-taught artist pushed the flexible medium in new directions as he applied his increasingly sophisticated understanding of color and light to a new set of atmospheric conditions. This compelling watercolor was painted during Homer’s second trip to the Bahamas in the winter of 1898–99. Depicting a luckless man washed up on the beach, surrounded by fragments of his shattered craft, the work demonstrates the artist’s fascination with the rapid and dangerous weather changes of the region. Here sunlight glints through gradually thinning storm clouds. Homer employed thickly applied opaque red and yellow pigments for the seaweed tossed on the sand, creating a contrast with the thin washes and fluid brushstrokes that he used to render the receding waves.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Winslow Homer

Title

After the Hurricane, Bahamas

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1899

Medium

Transparent watercolor, with touches of opaque watercolor, rewetting, blotting and scraping, over graphite, on moderately thick, moderately textured (twill texture on verso), ivory wove paper

Inscriptions

Signed recto, lower left corner, in brush and black watercolor: "Homer 99" Inscribed verso, upper center, in graphite: "25 814"; upper center, in black chalk, crossed out in graphite: "10"; center, in graphite: "MK C.20782//oxx//After the Tornado//3 M.<. 1027-"; lower left corner, in graphite: "After the Tornado"

Dimensions

37.2 × 54.2 cm (14 11/16 × 21 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection

Reference Number

1933.1235

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/16776/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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