Gloucester Harbor

Artist Winslow Homer (American, 1836 - 1910)

Date1873

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 15 1/2 x 22 3/8 inches (39.37 x 56.83 cm)
Framed: 24 3/8 x 31 7/16 x 2 3/4 inches (61.91 x 79.85 x 6.99 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation

Object numberF76-46

SignedSigned and dated lower right: Winslow Homer 1873

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionThree figures in a rowboat, one rowing and two seated in the stern of the boat. In the background, several sailboats on the water; beyond them, a strip of land is visible on the horizon. Sky is filled with pink clouds.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Century Association, New York, February 7, 1874, no. 2.

Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, Chicago, Ill., September 1875, no. 111.

Winslow Homer Centenary Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, December 15, 1936–January 15, 1937, no. 8.

Winslow Homer, Wildenstein and Company, New York, February 19–March 22, 1947, no. 15.

Winslow Homer: A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., November 23, 1958–May 3,

1959 (traveled), no. 29 (no. 26 at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

Kaleidoscope of American Painting: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mo., December 2, 1977–January 22, 1978, no. 78.

Genre, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., April 5–May 15, 1983, no. 41A.

Albert Bierstadt and His Contemporaries, Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka, Kans., October 7–28, 1984, no cat.

Winslow Homer in Gloucester, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Ill., October 20–December 30, 1990, no. 6.

A Fair Wind: Maritime Paintings by Winslow Homer, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., June 9–September 3, 2000, unnumbered.

Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., February 18–May 6, 2001; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 10–September 9, 2001; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga., October 6, 2001–January 6, 2002, no. 19.

Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light, Art Institute of Chicago, February 16–May 11, 2008, no. 7.

Gallery Label

Winslow Homer is best known for his dark, brooding seascapes of the 1890s. In the 1870s, however, he was distinguished for scenes of children at play that were considered decidedly lacking in sentimentality. This view of three children in a dory in Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts, not only depicts a delightful summer outing, but also suggests, by the presence of the huge schooners in the background, the boys' possible future livelihood.

The colors in this painting are grounded in an eerie combination of pink and blue that glows with reflected light. The seagull in the distance contributes to the spatial depth of the design, which is carefully calibrated to create a rhythm between solid shapes and open spaces, light and shadow.

Provenance

To Charles S. Homer (the artist’s brother), by bequest;

(M. Knoedler and Co., New York, 1918);

(Howard Young Galleries, Chicago, 1918);

Harry Jones, Kansas City; to Amelia Jones (daughter of Harry Jones), Kansas City, Mo., by 1936;

Mrs. David B. Findlay (sister of Amelia Jones), Kansas City, Mo., c. 1945;

to Wildenstein and Co., New York, c. 1946);

to Mr. and Mrs. Carleton Mitchell, Annapolis, Md., 1946;

(Robert G. Osborne, New York, c. 1974);

to NAMA, 1976.

Published References

“Art Sale,” Evening Mail (New York), December 16, 1874, 3.

Lloyd Goodrich, “Winslow Homer,” Arts 6 (October 1924), 191.

Winslow Homer Centenary Exhibition, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1936), 21.

Edward Alden Jewell, “Melange of Events,” New York Times, February 23, 1947, X7.

Winslow Homer, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein and Company, 1947), 33, 46.

Gloria Finn, “A Rich View of Winslow Homer,” Washington Post and Times Herald, November 23, 1958, E7.

Winslow Homer: A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art; New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1958), 118.

Winslow Homer: A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, in association with National
Gallery of Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1959), 95.

Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, Winslow Homer, American Artist: His World and His Work (New York: Bramhall House, 1961), 42, 247.

“Kaleidoscope of American Painting,” Wednesday Magazine, November 30, 1977, 15.

Donald Hoffmann, “American Exhibit Unveils 5 New Gifts to Nelson,” Kansas City Times, December 2, 1977, 1A,
8A.

“Pictures at an Exhibition,” Independent (Kansas City, Mo.), December 3, 1977, 16.

“Kemper Gifts to the Nelson,” Kansas City Times, December 6, 1977, 34.

“American Painting Exhibit Comes to Nelson Gallery,” Johnson County Sun (Overland Park, Kans.), December 9, 1977, 5B (as Boy in Gloucester Harbor).

“Kaleidoscope of American Painting,” Independent (Kansas City, Mo.), December 10, 1977, 4.

Donald Hoffmann, “Images from a New Land,” Kansas City Star, December 11, 1977, 1D.

Kaleidoscope of American Painting: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1977), 61, cover.

“Kaleidoscope of American Painting, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Gallery Events (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts), January 1978, unpaginated.

“Art across North America,” Apollo 107 (April 1978), 328.

William L. McCorkle, “Nelson Gallery Sets Acquisition Record,” Kansas City Star, July 16, 1978, 2B.

Eleanor H. Gustafson, “Museum Accessions,” Antiques 114 (August 1978), 250.

Gordon Hendricks, The Life and Work of Winslow Homer (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1979), 303.

Ralph T. Coe, “Valuable Gifts,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Star, May 7, 1980, 18A.

Ross E. Taggart, “American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,” Antiques 122 (November 1982), 1032, 1037.

Genre, exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 5, 16.

Donald Hoffmann, “Kemper Family Donates $1.5 Million Portrait,” Kansas City Star, October 12, 1986, 12A.

Helen A. Cooper, Winslow Homer Watercolors, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press; Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1986), 36–37, 245.

Helen A. Cooper, “Winslow Homer’s Watercolors: A Study in Theme and Style,” Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1986, xi, 29.

Kate F. Jennings, Winslow Homer (New York: Crescent Books, 1990), 37.

D. Scott Atkinson and Jochen Wierich, Winslow Homer in Gloucester, exh. cat. (Chicago: Terra Museum of American Art, 1990), 23, 70, 103.

The Society of Fellows Silver Anniversary (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1990), unpaginated.

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 4, 73–74.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6^th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 51, 236.

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 1933–1993 (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 101.

David Weidner, “Advertising and Artistry Collide for a Mutual Fund and a Museum,” Wall Street Journal, 10 November 1997, B1.

Brian Kaberline, “Law Prof Stands behind—and beside Former Students,” Kansas City Business Journal, 2.

Catherine Dorsey, “The Sea around Us: A Selection of Maritime Paintings at the Chrysler Serve as an Ideal Prelude to OpSail2000,” Port Folio Weekly (Norfolk, Va.), June 6, 2000, 30.

R. Crosby Kemper Jr., Banking on Art: Fifty Years of Collecting (Kansas City, Mo.: R. Crosby Kemper Jr., 2000), 8.

Margaret C. Conrads, Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s, exh. cat. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2001), 57–58, 208, 221n45.

David Tatham, Winslow Homer and the Pictorial Press (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2003), 185.

Lloyd Goodrich, Record of Works by Winslow Homer, ed. and expanded by Abigail Booth Gerdts (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2005), 2:251–52.

Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007) 1:318–323, 2:134–135.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 164–165.

Martha Tedeschi with Kristi Dahm, Watercolors of Winslow Homer: The Color of Light (New Haven: Yale University Press; Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2008), 38, 41.

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