Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The mottled texture of the sky is an example of Homer’s blotting technique—a subtractive process in which he applied a wash of water, sprinkled some breadcrumbs, and then gently rubbed the paper with his fingers in order to absorb the extra color, leaving behind a granulated texture.

Description

In this work from a series of watercolors produced in Gloucester, MA, in the summer of 1873 Winslow Homer evokes the fraught nature of the local fishing industry by focusing not on the perilous work of adults, but rather the children they leave behind. In Boy with Anchor, the massive anchor pointing toward the sea foreshadows the weight of the boy’s maritime destiny. The work is an early example of Homer's talent for evoking atmospheric effects and his interest in technical variety. Presumably working outdoors, Homer layered fluent washes of blue, gray, and brown transparent watercolor over his graphite underdrawing to flesh out the beach and sky. He built up the hot, pebble-studded surface of the beach by using dense gouache to draw textural detail and created the broken cloud pattern in the sky by lightly blotting his wet blue wash. The picture’s formal tensions between warm and cool colors, outline and wash, and transparency and opacity mirror the emotional tension of the scene.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed, lower right, in black watercolor: homer 1873; signed, lower right, in black watercolor: homer 18[illegible, partially painted out]

Provenance

?-?

John M. Hay [1838-1910], former Secretary of State, Washington, D.C.

?-1954

Mrs. C. E. Meder (a household employee of John M. Hay), Kirtland, OH, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art.

1954-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.

Citations

“Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, October - December, 1953.” The Art Quarterly 17, no. 2 (Summer 1954): 179-190. Mentioned: p. 180

Francis, Henry S. "Recent Additions to the Collection of Homer." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 42, no. 3 (1955): 51-54. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 52-53

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 561 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 186 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 186 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Celeste Adams, Rita Myers, and Adele Z. Silver. An Introduction to American Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1972. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 10-11.

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 231 archive.org

Hendricks, Gordon. The Life and Work of Winslow Homer. New York: Harry N. Abram, 1979. Reproduced: Plate CL-554, p. 318

The Cleveland Museum of Art and Michael J. Miller. Drawing, A Glossary of Materials: Selections from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 17-18

Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, D. Scott Atkinson, and Jochen Wierich. Winslow Homer in Gloucester. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1990. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 41, fig. 31

Placidi, Kathleen S. "Beyond Bootblacks: "The Boat Builder" and the Art of John George Brown." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 10 (1990): 366-82. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 370-71 www.jstor.org

Cikovsky, Nicolai, Franklin Kelly, and Winslow Homer. Winslow Homer. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1995. Mentioned and Reproduced: no. 68, p. 137

Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 86, p. 8, pp. 208-209, p. 295

Johns, Elizabeth. Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Mentioned and Reproduced: no. 45, p. 75

The Art Institute of Chicago, Martha Tedeschi, and Kristi Dahm. Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 44, p. 46, no. 11

Exhibition history

Water Color. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 6-August 27, 1962).

Winslow Homer: Portrait of America. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 10, 1965-May 16, 1966).

Eight American Masters of Watercolor: Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Maurice B. Prendergast, John Marin, Arthur G. Dove, Charles Demuth, Charles E. Burchfield, Andrew Wyeth. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (April 23-June 16, 1968); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (June 28-August 18, 1968); Seattle Art Museum (September 5-October 13, 1968).

Winslow Homer. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (October 15, 1995-January 28, 1996); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (February 21-May 26, 1996).

Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).

Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (organizer) (February 16-May 11, 2008).

Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014).