Winslow Homer: Force of Nature

Winslow Homer, The Gulf Stream, 1899; reworked by 1906, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1906.

Winslow Homer: Force of Nature is the first UK exhibition of the work of this great American Realist painter who confronted the leading issues facing the United States, and its relationship with both Europe and the Caribbean world, in the final decades of the 19th century. Homer’s career spanned a turning point in North American history. He lived through the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery, so-called Reconstruction, and war with the last colonial European power in the Americas, Spain.

From his sketches of battle and camp life, to dazzling tropical views and darker restless seascapes, the works reflect Homer’s interest in the pressing issues of his time; conflict, race, and the relationship between humankind and the environment – issues still relevant for us today. With more than fifty paintings, covering over forty years of Homer’s career, 'Winslow Homer: Force of Nature' is part of a programme of exhibitions that introduce major American artists to a UK and European audience and follows on from the gallery’s exhibitions about George Bellows and the Ashcan painters, Frederic Church and Thomas Cole.  It was produced with the Metropolitan Museum in New York, whose own show on Homer was featured here earlier this year.