Boston Athenæum

March 21, 2019 at the Boston Athenæum. In the late 1860s, an ambitious New York illustrator – not yet recognized as an artist – made his first picture of the sea. Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was 33 years old, freshly back from France, and finding his way. Over the next 11 years Homer’s journey would take him to a variety of marine destinations, from New Jersey to Maine, but especially – and repeatedly – to Gloucester and other parts of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. It was on Cape Ann that Homer made his first watercolors, and where he learned his great calling: to be a marine artist. And it was there, in Gloucester in 1880, at the end of these 11 years, that he enjoyed the most productive season of his life, composing more than 100 watercolors of astonishing beauty. In August, 40 public and private collections will share some of Homer’s finest marine works at the Cape Ann Museum, in the heart of Gloucester, for the first close examination of the making of this great marine artist. Homer’s journey forever chang