Homer: a Master & a Mystery

Sure, you can read biography after biography about Winslow Homer the artist, but who he is as a man is quite the mystery. Much is said about his work, how he accomplished his goals and what occurred during the years of his career, but little is said about what his personal struggles and triumphs were.

His birth occurred on the twenty-fourth day of February during the year eighteen hundred and thirty-six. Just ten days late of being a Valentine’s Day baby, Winslow Homer’s entrance onto this Earth marked a profound change in the future of the art world. Though born in Canten, Massachusetts, he grew up primarily in his mother’s home town of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In Cambridge, his parents encouraged him the become apprentice to J.H. Bufford at the age of eighteen. He apprenticed for Bufford for three years. Bufford operated lithography firms first in New York from 1835 to 1840, then in Boston from 1841 to 1871.

From then, Homer received a more formal type of training from three artists by the name of William S. Pendleton of Boston, George Endicott of New York and Nathaniel Currier of New York. Pendleton was a New York City born lithographer married to a woman named Margaret and father to three sons by the names of John, William and George. Endicott was a Massachusetts born artist who began his career in 1828 and furthered it by joining with his brother in a firm in 1841. Currier, often referred to as the “most successful purveyor of political prints in the United States” spent his career producing campaign banners for every presidential election between the years 1840 and 1872.

While studying under these artists and gathering inspirations through others, Homer developed a sort of wise sense uncommon to others of his time. He grew quite wise to the fact that an artist’s personality reflects through their work. He also was wise to the fact that no matter how famous an artist, it could end any moment. Learning through experience and experimentation, rather than imitating, also afforded him more respect and a higher acclaim throughout his career.

Winslow Homer, though formally educated until his eighteenth year, was almost completely self taught. His works are constantly being referred to as being painted by one of “America’s best painters.” This is quite an accomplishment, as any artist knows, for someone teaching them self as he did.

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