Winslow Homer: North America, Europe and the Caribbean world

Comprehensive online course from the National Gallery examining aspects of their current Winslow Homer exhibition.

Over three weeks six speakers guided us through Homer’s life and work. Week one started with Chris Riopelle curator of the current show guiding us through it. I have heard him talk about it before but you learn something new each time. This was followed by John Fogg from the University of Birmingham talking about Homer’s experiences in the American Civil War and the effect on his art both during and after the war.

Week two took us to Europe with Frances Varley from the Courtauld leading us through what art Homer may have seen when he was in Paris in 1866 and how it influenced his work on his return. She saw this as a period of experimentation and recovery from the Civil War. We then moved to England and his time at Cullercoats with Christine Riding from the National Gallery placing the work in the context of his whole career and in the fashion for artists to work in working communities.

In the final week we moved to the Caribbean with Maggie Cao from the University of North Carolina to look at the significance of his work there and to look in detail at the lives of the black divers he studied there. She put his famous pictures “The Gulfstream” in the context of these trips. We ended with Chiara De Stefano from the National Gallery looking at the late sea pictures where Homer started to leave out figures and concentrate of the power of the sea and rocks.

This course gave more context for the pictures in the exhibition. I did intend popping back to take another look with all this knowledge, but I think I may have run out of time.



 

 

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