Winslow Homer and the critics in the 1870s

Magazine Antiques, August, 2001 by Margaret C. Conrads

(10.) World, November 6, 1869.

(11.) New York Evening Mail, November 6, 1869. Franklin Kelly, curator of American and British painting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., kindly supplied me with a transcription of this article.

(12.) Low Tide is not included in a later version of the exhibition catalogue, printed when the show was extended to coincide with the 1870 annual exhibition of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors (Catalogue of the Third Winter Exhibition of the National Academy of Design (1869-70) Including the Third Annual Collection of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors [New York, 1870]). It should be noted that sometimes works were withdrawn from extended exhibitions simply because they went on for so long.

(13.) William F. Milton (1837-1905), a retired East India merchant, was told Low Tide was painted over when he tried to purchase the canvas from the artist a year or two after its initial showing (Nicolai Cikovsky Jr. and Franklin Kelly, Winslow Homer [National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995], pp. 81-83.) However, On the Beach does not show any evidence of repainting, although, interestingly, X rays reveal that a figure totally unrelated to any in Low Tide was Homer's initial foray on the canvas. (I am grateful to Michael Heslip, Williamstown Art Conservation Laboratory, Massachusetts, for sharing his examination report and thoughts about this painting's physical history.) Similarly, Beach Scene, which has been examined with infrared reflectography but not X-rayed, shows minimal changes in the current image but also has indications of a different composition underneath (Emil Bosshard, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, to James Crawford, Canajoharie Library and Art Ga llery, February 14,2000.)

(14.) Cikovsky and Kelly, Winslow Homer, p.83.

(15.) New York Evening Express, April 18, 1872.

(16.) Evening Post, April 27, 1870.

(17.) The paintings that garnered the most praise were Little Stranger (whereabouts unknwon), by Seymour Joseph Guy (1824-1910), which pictured a newborn being examined by his older sister; Huldy (whereabouts unknown), by Enoch Wood Perry (1831-1915), based on the rustic character of that name in a poem by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891); and Return of the Flags (West Point Museum, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York), by Thomas Waterman Wood (1823-1903), a Civil War image. Perry's work received special praise for its subject, exquisite detail, drawing, overall conception, and beauty, from the conservative John Jones to the forward-thinking Eugene Benson. For their praise of Perry and responses to his peers, see John Jones, "The National Academy of Design," Harper's Weekly, vol. 14 (May 14, 1870 ), p. 307; and Eugene Benson, "The Annual Exhibition of the Academy," Putnam's vol. 5 (June 1870), pp. 701, 706-708.

(18.) Evening Telegram, April 20, 1872. Reviews also appeared in the Evening Express, April 18, 1872; and New-York Daily Tribune, April 12, 1872.