The Herring Net

CC0 Public Domain Designation

1885

Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910)

Long inspired by the sea, Winslow Homer spent time in 1881 in a fishing community in Tynemouth, England. The experience fundamentally changed his life and work. His paintings thereafter focused almost exclusively on humankind’s age-old contest with nature. In The Herring Net, executed in Prouts Neck, Maine, Homer depicted the heroic efforts of fishermen at their daily work. In a small dory, one figure hauls in glistening herring, while the other, possibly a boy, unloads the catch. Laboring far from the schooners on the horizon, the pair strives to steady the precarious boat as it rides the incoming swells.

Status: On View, Gallery 161
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Winslow Homer
Title: The Herring Net
Place: Prouts Neck (Object made in:)
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.: 1885
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed recto, bottom-right, on water, in red paint: "Homer 85".
Dimensions: 76.5 × 122.9 cm (30 1/8 × 48 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
Reference Number: 1937.1039
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/25865/manifest.json

“Fine Arts: The Autumn Academy,” Nation 41 (Dec. 17, 1885): 516–17.
W.A. Coffin, “A Painter of the Sea,” Century Magazine (Sept. 1899).
R. Hitchcock, The Art of the World: The World’s Columbian Exposition (D. Appleton and Company, 1895) Section 4, 143 (ill.).
J.W. Young, “The Art of Winslow Homer,” Fine Arts Journal 19 (Feb. 1908): 47.
“Annual Carnegie Exhibit,” American Art News 6 (May 9, 1908): 4, as Banks Fisherman.
Carnegie Institute, Catalogue of the Twelfth Annual Exhibition at the Carnegie Institute, exh. cat., (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute, 1908), n.p., cat. 151, as Banks Fisherman.
William Howe Downes, The Life and Works of Winslow Homer (Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1911), 134, 137, 231, 258 (ill.).
A. Hoeber, “Winslow Homer: A Painter of the Sea,” World’s Work (Feb. 1911).
A.E. Gallatin, “Winslow Homer Memorial Exhibition,” Art and Progress (Apr. 1911).
Keyon Cox, Winslow Homer (New York, Privately printed by Frederic Fairchild Sherman, 1914), 34, 51 (ill.).
“Knoedler Firm Buys 21 Winslow Homers,” New York Herald (Nov. 15, 1915).
Nathaniel Pousette–Dart, comp. Winslow Homer (Frederick A. Stokes, 1923), ill.
M. B. W., “Summer Loan Exhibitions,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 17 (Sept. 19, 1923): 56, 58 (ill.).
Robert B. Harshe, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), 163, cat. 2186, as Herring Net, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/gri.ark:/13960/s2hxd115k60.
Forbes Watson, “In the Galleries,” Arts 16 (May 1930), 630–34 (ill.).
Creative Art 6 (June 1930), supplement, 141 (ill.).
C. Borrows, “Letter From New York,” Apollo 12 (July 1930): 46 (ill.).
Museum of Modern Art, Winslow Homer, Albert P. Ryder, Thomas Eakins, exh. cat. (Museum of Modern Art, 1930), 21, cat. 9 (ill.).
W.H. Downes, “American Painters of the Sea,” American Magazine of Art 23 (Nov. 1931): 360–74.
G. Dubois, “Two Exhibitions by Winslow Homer,” Magazine of Art (Jan. 1932).
Theodore Bolton, “The Art of Winslow Homer: An Estimate in 1932,” Fine Arts 18 (Feb. 1932): 23–28.
Art Digest 7 (May 15, 1933): 29 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of a Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Lent from American Collections, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1933), 63, cat. 460, pl. 83 (ill.).
H. Clifford, “Winslow Homer: Oils, Watercolors and Drawings in a Centenary Exhibition Current in Philadelphia,” Art News 34 (May 9, 1936): 6 (ill.).
Calvin S. Hathaway, “Drawings by Winslow Homer in The Museum’s Collections,” Chronicle of the Museum of Decorative Arts of the Cooper Hewitt 1, no. 2 (Apr. 1936).
Art Institute of Chicago, Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 32 (Jan. 19, 1938): 5 (ill.).
Kate Brewster, “The Ryerson Gift to The Art Institute of Chicago,” Magazine of Art 31 (Feb. 1938): 94–100 (ill.).
Art Quarterly 1, no. 2 (Spring 1938): 147 (ill.).
Thomas Craven, Treasury of Art Masterpieces from the Renaissance to the Present Day (Simon and Schuster, 1939), 463, no. 112.
Donald Jenks, Paintings on Parade, A Pictorial Handbook of World’s Masterpieces (Hale, Cushman Flint, 1939).
Art Digest 13 (Mar. 15, 1939): 26 (ill.)
Forbes Watson, Winslow Homer (Crown Publishers, 1942), (ill.).
J. Walker and J. Magill, Great American Painting from Smibert to Bellows, 1729–1924 (Oxford University Press, 1943), 61 (ill.).
Lloyd Goodrich, Winslow Homer (Whitney Museum of American Art; The MacMillan Company, 1944), cat. 28.
Lloyd Goodrich, “The Young Winslow Homer,” Magazine of Art (Feb. 1944).
National Geographic Magazine (Feb. 1951): 211 (ill.).
Lloyd Goodrich, Winslow Homer (New York, Braziller, 1959).
Jean Gould, Winslow Homer: A Portrait (Dodd, Mead, 1962).
Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, Winslow Homer, American Artists: His World and His Work (New York, Clarkson N. Potter, 1961), 188 (ill.).
H. Ingalls, “Elements in the Development of Winslow Homer,” Art Journal 24 (Fall 1964): 18–22.
Philip C. Beam, Winslow Homer at Prout’s Neck (Little, Brown and Company, 1967), 67 (ill.).
Thomas S. Buechner and Axel von Saldern, Triumph of Realism: An Exhibition of European and American Realist Paintings, 1850–1910, exh. cat. (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1967).
John Wilmerding, A History of Marine Painting (Salem, MA: Peabody Essex Museum, 1968).
Barbara Novak, American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Realism, Idealism and the American Experience (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1969).
John Shapely, ed., The Index of Twentieth Century Artists, 4 (New York, College Art Association ) vol. 1, 1934; reprint ed., (New York, Arno Press, 1970), 24–37, 56–60.
Vincent Price, “The Vincent Price Treasury of American Art,” Country Beautiful (1972): 139 (ill.).
John Wilmerding, Winslow Homer (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1972), 147 (ill.).
David A. Hanks, “American Paintings at The Art Institute,” Antiques 104 (Nov. 1973): 873–905 (ill.).
C. Montgomery, “The Fish as a Symbol,” Studio International 187 (May 1974): 200–26 (ill.).
Lois Fink and Joshua Taylor, The Academic Tradition in American Art, National Collection of Fine Arts (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1975).
M. Brown, American Art to 1900 (Abrams, 1977).
Milo 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), 23, fig. 4.
Art Institute of Chicago, Master Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Little, Brown, and Company, 1988), 89 (ill.).
Paul Raymond Provost, “Winslow Homer’s The Fog Warning: The Fisherman as Heroic Character,” American Journal 22, no. 1 (Kennedy Galleries, 1990): 21–27, fig. 2 (ill.).
Carolyn Kinder Carr, et al., Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World’s Fair (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 1993), 262 (ill.).
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).
Thomas Andrew Denenberg, et al., Wyeth Vertigo (VT: Shelburne Museum, 2013).
William R. Cross, Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painter’s Journey, 1869–1880, exh. cat. (Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Museum, 2019), 11, 158, 160, fig. 64 (ill.).

New York, National Academy of Design, Autumn Exhibition, Nov. 23–Dec. 19, 1885, no. 395.
Chicago, World’s Columbian Exposition, May 1–Oct. 31, 1893.
Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Institute, 1908, as Banks Fishermen.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Winslow Homer, Feb. 6–Mar. 19, 1911, no. 6, as Banks Fishermen.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings from the Collection of R. F. Angell, Mr. and Mrs. William T. Cresmer, Mr. and Mrs. Max Epstein, Martin A. Ryerson, June 1–Oct. 1, 1923.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Homer, Ryder, and Eakins, May 6–June 4, 1930, cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–Nov. 1, 1933, cat.
New York, Knoedler Galleries, To Honor Henry McBride, An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Water Colours, Nov. 29–Dec. 17, 1949, no. 1, as Banks Fishermen or The Herring Net.
Milwaukee, Marquette University, Festival of the American Arts, Apr. 22–May 3, 1956, no. 38.
Art Institute of Chicago, Two Centuries of American Art, 1750-1950, Oct. 1, 1959–Jan. 10, 1960, no cat. [downloadable checklist available].
NY, Brooklyn Museum, The Triumph of Realism, Oct. 3–Nov. 19, 1967, cat.; Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Dec. 11, 1967–Jan. 4, 1968; San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Feb. 17–Mar. 31, 1968.
Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, Winslow Homer, Oct. 15, 1995–Jan. 28, 1996; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Feb. 21–May 26, 1996; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 17–Sept. 22, 1996.

Charles W. Gould, New York, by 1908 to 1915; M. Knoedler and Company, New York, 1915; sold to Martin A. Ryerson (1856–1932), Chicago, 1915; by descent to his wife Carrie Hutchinson Ryerson (1859–1937), Chicago, 1932 [Last Will and Testament of Martin A. Ryerson, Died August 11, 1932, copy in Institutional Archives, Art Institute of Chicago]; bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1937.

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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.

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