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Flamborough Head, England

A work made of graphite and opaque white watercolor on medium thick, slightly textured, tan laid paper with red and blue fibers.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of graphite and opaque white watercolor on medium thick, slightly textured, tan laid paper with red and blue fibers.

Date:

1882

Artist:

Winslow Homer
American, 1836-1910

About this artwork

Flamborough Head, England shows Maggie Storey, one of Homer’s favorite models, standing resolutely upon the high chalk cliffs of Flamborough. Bearing the burden of a large basket and with her hands firmly on her hips, she is every bit the strong fisherwoman, the artist’s most frequent subject during his English sojourn of 1881-82. Homer positions the viewer slightly below Storey, giving her an even nobler, more monumental presence. The greater solidity and refinement of Homer’s figure drawing style was due at least in part to his study of Old Master drawings at the British Museum.

This drawing demonstrates a shift in the way that Homer used opaque white watercolor. No longer reserving it for discrete highlights, he adopted the English practice of diluting opaque white watercolor to portray mist, clouds, and the “effects of distance and atmosphere” (Cohn 1977, p. 51). The artist applied this media in broad, expressive strokes, ending them in curves to indicate wispy clouds and varying the opacity to suggest different densities. He employed a dilute wash in the lower portion of the sky, dragging the side of his brush to create a hard edge that defined the horizon.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Winslow Homer

Title

Flamborough Head, England

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.

1882

Medium

Graphite and opaque white watercolor on medium thick, slightly textured, tan laid paper with red and blue fibers

Inscriptions

Signed recto, lower left, in graphite: "Winslow Homer 1882/Flamborough Head 1882"

Dimensions

45.2 × 60.9 cm (17 13/16 × 24 in.)

Credit Line

Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection

Reference Number

1933.1240

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/16791/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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