Winslow Homer 1836 - 1910

Charles S. Homer, Jr., 1910
Mrs. Charles S. Homer, Jr., 1917
Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Macbeth, New York, 1937
Mrs. Robert McIntyre, New York
Macbeth Gallery, New York
Millicent Rogers (Mrs. H. Huddleston Rogers), Washington, D.C., 1945
By descent in the family to the present owner (her son), 1953

New York, American Water Color Society, Twenty-first Annual Exhibition, January-February 1888, no. 1 (as Tampa, Florida)
Boston, Massachusetts, Doll & Richards, October 1912
Prout's Neck, Maine, Prout's Neck Maine Association, Century Loan Exhibition as a Memorial to Winslow Homer, July-August 1936, no. 43
South Hadley, Massachusetts, Water Colors by Winslow Homer, May-June 1940, no. 13
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Winslow Homer: A Retrospective Exhibition, November 1958-March 1959, no. 130
Nassau, Bahamas, International Arts Guild of the Bahamas, Winslow Homer (1836-1910), March 1962, no. 7
Tucson, Arizona, University of Arizona Art Gallery, Yankee Painter: A Retrospective Exhibition of Oils, Watercolors and Graphics by Winslow Homer, October-December 1963, no. 106
Norfolk, Virginia, The Mariners Museum; Richmond, Virginia, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Homer and the Sea, September-November 1964, no. 29
Jacksonville, Florida, Cummer Gallery of Art, Winslow Homer's Florida: 1886-1909, April-May 1977, no. 6

Helen A. Cooper, Winslow Homer Watercolors, Washington, D.C., 1986, pp. 150, 251, illustrated p. 152

Very good condition. Unframed: hinged to the mat in three places along top edge, some slight discoloration along edges, particularly lower left corner.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Between 1884 and 1905 Winslow Homer's life at Prout's Neck, Maine was peppered with trips to the tropics, including the Bahamas, Florida, Cuba, and Bermuda. In December of 1885 Homer visited Florida, likely sailing to Jacksonville, traveling over land to Tampa, where he stayed for at least a month, and then sailing to Key West. At the time, Tampa was a small community of only 1,500 residents and had few diversions for wealthy tourists. According to contemporary guidebooks its primary attractions consisted of 'history, scenery, oranges, and Indian mounds,' as well as excellent hunting and fishing. Homer's affinity for angling likely drew him to Tampa, though none of the work he produced there features fishing as a subject. The subjects Homer did choose--coconut palms, alligators, exotic birds, live oaks, and hurricane swept-palms--were often popular subjects in local guidebooks.

With its unique environmental characteristics, the tropical landscape posed a new set of artistic challenges for Homer. His command of the watercolor medium allowed him the flexibility to adapt his technique to embrace the ever changing variables of atmospheric conditions, humid air, and translucent seas. Homer's Florida watercolors are notable for the wide range of techniques he employed to execute them, from complex layers of color to delicate transparent washes. According to Helen Cooper, in Spanish Moss at Tampa Homer's sophisticated knowledge of color allowed him to "evoke the haunting moisture-laden quality of the scenery," using "narrow strokes of ever darker gray against a medium gray sky [to] form the dripping moss on the trees, broader strokes of pink-grays for the silvery sea, and watery sienna grays for the foreground" (Winslow Homer Watercolors, p. 156).

Critics were quick to notice the differences between his new tropical watercolors and those done in Cullercoats a few years earlier. These scenes have a sense of spontaneity and freshness that is strikingly different from the seriousness and gravity that mark his English works. Critics noted that Homer had found 'color and sunshine,' 'a new-born power of rendering,' and a 'frankness and yet a harmony' in the tropics. Franklin Kelly writes, "these works were not part of a larger systematic process intended to result in a finished work of high ambition, but as records of actual experience. They were, in other words, transcriptions of the visual encounters with new things in a new land that energized Homer's creative instincts, 'memoranda of travel,' but also memoranda of excitement, interest, and pleasure" (Winslow Homer, 1995, p. 87).