Overview

In this compelling biography, William R. Cross chronicles the life story of the great painter and illustrator Winslow Homer, who captured America in the crucible of the Civil War and contributed to shaping American identity to this day. In 1860, at the age of twenty-four, Winslow Homer (1836-1910) sold Harper's two dozen wood engravings, carved into boxwood and transferred to metal plates to stamp on paper. One was a scene that Homer saw in his hometown of Boston, showing Frederick Douglass speaking about freedom and a crowd of abolitionists being thrown from a church; at their front is Frederick Douglass, declaring the freedom of all mankind. He is at the heart of the image, face turned skyward and right arm reaching out like a Roman orator. Homer, born into the Panic of 1837 and raised in the years before the Civil War, came of age in a nation in crisis. Nonetheless, he spent his life capturing scenes that were distinctively, quintessentially American. Whether in pencil, watercolor, or oil, Homer addressed the hopes and fears of his fellow Americans and invited his viewers into stories embedded with universal, timeless questions of purpose and meaning. Like his contemporary Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, the American everyman, Homer captured the landscape of a rapidly changing country with an artist's probing insight. His is the story of America in all its complexity and contradiction, as he evolved his style and adapted to the restless spirit of new invention transforming his world. In Winslow Homer: American Passage, William R. Cross, a deeply insightful scholar and curator of Homer's work, reveals the man behind the images: the life, led on the front lines of American history, that enabled Homer to create pivotal monuments of American culture.

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Reviews

"Finally, Winslow Homer's brilliant work and fascinating life are united in one volume. -- ""Ken Burns, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker"" Our visual understanding of the nineteenth century and especially of the Civil War comes to us in no small part from Winslow Homer. -- ""Drew Gilpin Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering"" The many nuances of [Homer's] life story also add richness to our understanding of history, place, and innovation in the United States. -- ""Martha Tedeschi, coauthor of Watercolors by Winslow Homer"""

Finally, Winslow Homer's brilliant work and fascinating life are united in one volume. -- Ken Burns, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Our visual understanding of the nineteenth century and especially of the Civil War comes to us in no small part from Winslow Homer. -- Drew Gilpin Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering The many nuances of [Homer's] life story also add richness to our understanding of history, place, and innovation in the United States. -- Martha Tedeschi, coauthor of Watercolors by Winslow Homer

Author Information

William R. Cross is an independent scholar and a consultant to art and history museums. He served as the curator of Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painter's Journey, 1869-1880, a nationally renowned 2019 exhibition at the Cape Ann Museum on the formation of Winslow Homer as a marine painter. He is also the chairman of the advisory board of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He lives with his wife, Ellen, in Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Traber Burns worked for thirty-five years in regional theater, including the New York, Oregon, and Alabama Shakespeare festivals. He also spent five years in Los Angeles appearing in many television productions and commercials, including Lost, Close to Home, Without a Trace, Boston Legal, Grey's Anatomy, Cold Case, Gilmore Girls, and others.

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