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Four Fishwives

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Winslow Homer, American, (1836–1910)
Four Fishwives, 1881
Watercolor on Paper
18 in. x 28 in. (45.72 cm. x 71.1 cm.)


Object Type: Painting
Technique: Brushwork
Credit Line: Gift of General and Mrs. Edward Clinton Young
Accession Number: YO24


Commentary
Earlier known as Fishing Fleet Coming In, Newcastle, England.

Exhibitions
“Winslow Homer” National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 10/15/95 - 01/28/96
“Winslow Homer Watercolors” National Gallery, Washington, D.C., 03/02/86 - 05/11/86
"Winslow Homer: Water and Light: Selected Watercolors, 1874-1897" Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, Florida, c.1991

Medium
Oil paint on canvas.

Object Description
Homer’s aim was to make watercolors achieve the aesthetic power of oil paintings in their large size, saturated colors, carefully arranged compositions, and modulated effects of light and shade. Four Fisherwives, was composed by Homer in his studio where he often combined for larger works, his less formal watercolors and drawings as studies.

Born February 24, 1836, in Boston, Homer was almost entirely self-taught as a painter. In 1856 he spent a year in France, and, although his interest in the painterly possibilities of natural light ran parallel to that of the early impressionists, he was not directly influenced by impressionism or French art. In 1973 he began working in watercolor, a medium that became as important to him as oil. His subject matter of the 1870s was primarily rural or idyllic scenes of farm life, children at play, and resort scenes peopled with fashionable women. A stay in England from 1881 to 1882, during which Homer lived in a fishing village, led to a permanent change in his subject matter. Therafter he concentrated on large-scale scenes of the sea, of its fishermen, and of their families. Four Fisherwives, is an example of his work in this period. In the grandeur of his themes and the strength of his designs, he became a dominant influence on the American Realist style of painting.

(Kirk Delman, Williamson Gallery Registrar)

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