Watercolor, boat debris and dark skinned man lie on beach, dark sky in background.

After the Hurricane, Bahamas

Winslow Homer

1899

Revered
as
America’s
master
of
watercolor,
Winslow
Homer
did
not
begin
working
in
the
medium
until
the
mature
age
of
thirty-seven.
As
a
watercolorist,
Homer
adapted
his
practice
to
the
diverse
locales
he
visited.
His
sojourns
in
the
tropics
took
him
to
the
Bahamas,
Bermuda,
Cuba,
and
various
locations
in
Florida.
In
each
new
environment,
the
self-taught
artist
pushed
the
flexible
medium
in
new
directions
as
he
applied
his
increasingly
sophisticated
understanding
of
color
and
light
to
a
new
set
of
atmospheric
conditions.
This
compelling
watercolor
was
painted
during
Homer’s
second
trip
to
the
Bahamas
in
the
winter
of
1898–99.
Depicting
a
luckless
man
washed
up
on
the
beach,
surrounded
by
fragments
of
his
shattered
craft,
the
work
demonstrates
the
artist’s
fascination
with
the
rapid
and
dangerous
weather
changes
of
the
region.
Here
sunlight
glints
through
gradually
thinning
storm
clouds.
Homer
employed
thickly
applied
opaque
red
and
yellow
pigments
for
the
seaweed
tossed
on
the
sand,
creating
a
contrast
with
the
thin
washes
and
fluid
brushstrokes
that
he
used
to
render
the
receding
waves.

Title After the Hurricane, Bahamas
Artist Winslow Homer
Date 1899
Medium Transparent watercolor, with touches of opaque watercolor, rewetting, blotting and scraping, over graphite, on moderately thick, moderately textured (twill texture on verso), ivory wove paper
Dimensions 37.2 × 54.2 cm (14 11/16 × 21 3/8 in.)

About Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer, one of the most influential American painters of the nineteenth century, is known for his dynamic depictions of the power and beauty of nature and reflections on humanity’s struggle with the sea. A keen observer of the world around him, Homer likewise experimented with color, form, and composition, pushing his landscapes and genre pictures in modern directions. Raised in Massachusetts, he apprenticed in a lithography shop in Boston in the mid-1850s and soon secured work as a freelance illustrator. Relocating to New York, he undertook assignments for Harper’s Weekly, among other journals, and enrolled in drawing classes at the National Academy of Design. 

During the Civil War, Harper’s Weekly sent Homer to the front, where he made drawings of Union battlefields, camps, and military hospitals that appeared as wood engravings in the widely circulated publication. Homer also took up painting during his time as an artist-correspondent. After the war, he focused on oil painting, working in New York and also traveling to France in 1866–67. Over the following decade, Homer painted scenes of leisure set in nature, such as the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Adirondacks in upstate New York. He also spent his summers visiting New England fishing villages, discovering new subjects that had a profound effect on his career. 

In 1881, he spent more than a year in the small fishing village of Cullercoats, England. This extended stay in the seaside community catalyzed a new, enduring interest in humankind’s age-old contest with nature, rendered in larger-scale compositions with more monumental figures and forms. In the summer of 1883 Homer moved to the coastal village of Prouts Neck, Maine, which remained his home for the rest of his life. There, he observed the shoreline in various weather conditions and seasons, creating his great seascapes, such as the iconic work The Herring Net. Amid the remote and dramatic landscape, he depicted views void of human life, focusing instead on an emotional response to nature, as in Coast of Maine. 

Late in his career, during visits to the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cuba, and Florida, Homer applied his sophisticated understanding of color and light to a new set of atmospheric conditions, most spectacularly in his watercolors, such as After the Hurricane, Bahamas.

The Art Institute’s collection of works by Winslow Homer spans his career. The artist’s works on paper were featured in the 2008 exhibition Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light.