Winslow Homer, The Fog Warning, 1885, oil on canvas, 30.2

Happy Birthday Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer, the American painter and printmaker, was born on February 24th, 1836 in Boston, Massachusetts to Charles Savage Homer and Henrietta Benson Homer.  Homer began his career as a commercial illustrator in Boston, after which Harper’s Weekly sent him to the front lines of the American Civil War to sketch battle scenes, where the artist transitioned from an illustrator to a painter.

Homer eventually settled in Prouts Neck, Maine, in a studio just feet from the ocean, where he captured on his canvases the “Darwinian” themes of survival for which he is best known.  He died there on September 29, 1910 at the age of 74.