Feature Articles


October Issue 1999

Exhibition of Winslow Homer's Early Art at Reynolda House in Winston-Salem

Twelve engraving and four oil paintings are on loan to Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, in Winston-Salem, NC, for Winslow Homer: Early Prints and Paintings on view through Nov. 28.

Paintings are from the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; Columbus Museum of Art, OH; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the collection of Mr. and Mrs. R. Philip Hanes, Jr., Winston-Salem, NC. The engraved prints are from Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, NC, and originally appeared as illustrations in periodicals, primarily Harper's Weekly.

Abundantly evident in Homer's early work is his keen power of observation and sense of detail. Homer began his career as apprentice to a Boston lithographer. Early influences were his assignment to the front for Harper's Weekly during the Civil War and a 1866 trip to Paris where he first encountered the French plein air or outdoor painters and the Japanese prints with their assymetrical and decorative designs, which were being shown at an international exposition.

Returning to NY, he set up his studio next to Eastman Johnson, who was working in the tradition of American genre painting.

Several events have been planned in conjunction with the Homer Exhibit. Franklin Kelly, curator of American and English paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, will speak about Looking at Homer on Oct. 18, at 8pm. Adera Scheinker of the Duke University Museum of Art will lecture about Homer's prints on loan from the museum on Nov. 3 at 4pm. Her topic is From Battlefield to Farm Field. Elizabeth Phillips, retired professor and chair of the English Department, Wake Forest University, will read and discuss poetry of Walt Whitman related to the Civil War, of which he and Winslow Homer were firsthand observers. She speaks on Oct. 20 at 1pm.

Also a fall course Art Illustrators into Artists, taught by curator Joyce K. Schiller, covers the proliferation of periodicals in the mid-nineteenth century and the resultant demand for illustration. Homer and almost a dozen artists in the Reynolda House collection produces popular illustrations at various times. Four sessions begin Oct. 5 and meet Tuesdays from 6 - 7:30pm through Oct. 26.

A free Community Day on Oct. 17, 2 to 4pm, will also have a theme that complements the exhibit and features art activities and entertainment.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call the museum at 336/725-5325.

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