Color, light, and water.(Current and coming)

Until about 1860 watercolor painting in the United States was primarily the domain of amateurs and refined young ladies, for whom painting was a sign of accomplishment. With the founding of the American Society of Painters in Watercolor in 1866, however, the medium gained popularity both with professional artists and the public, who viewed it as "fresh and free and native." Among the most skillful and influential early practitioners was Winslow Homer, whose career coincided precisely with these years of rising status. In the words of his early biographer Lloyd Goodrich, Homer "revolutionized the vision and technique of watercolor.... Almost every leading watercolorist since Homer, no matter how far each has developed from his simple naturalism, owes something to his achievement."

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Born in Boston in 1836, Homer began his career drawing designs for lithographs and in 1859 moved from Boston to New York City, where he found steady work as an illustrator for Harper's while also taking classes at the National Academy of Design and studying basic painting technique with the French artist Frederick Rondel over the course of several Saturdays in 1861. He achieved early critical success with his canvases based on three trips he made with the Union army during the Civil War in 1861, 1862, and 1864, became a full member of the National Academy in 1865, and spent most of 1867 in France, where he exhibited two works at the Exposition Universelle. By the time he began to work seriously in watercolor in 1873, his career as a painter was fully launched.

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The versatile, quick-drying medium of watercolor lent itself well to Homer's preferred working method of choosing a theme and exploring it intensely in a series of rapid renderings. Watercolor's portability was also well suited to the artist, whose lifelong habit of travel took him on regular seasonal trips to places such as Gloucester, Massachusetts, the Adirondacks, and the White Mountains in New Hampshire. He made a lengthy visit to England in 1881 and 1882, and, after his move from New York City to Prout's Neck, Maine, in 1883, spent his winters visiting the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cuba, or Florida, ...