Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s

When Winslow Homer settled at Prout's Neck, Maine, in 1883 at age 47, he was already a famous American artist. Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s takes into account the painter's earlier decades in New York, which featured a 15-year stint beginning in 1857 as an illustrator for Harper's Weekly. An explosion in art interest and art writing after the Civil War and a plethora of new influences from Europe converged in and around Homer's work, argues Margaret C. Conrads, a curator at Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum. With 97 color plates, 58 b&w illus. and generous quotations from period literature, Conrads reconstructs a heady climate of artistic possibility and achievement. ( Apr.)