Born February 24, 1836
Boston, Massachusetts
Died September 29, 1910
Prout's Neck, Maine

American painter who received critical acclaim for
his portrayals of Civil War scenes

"[Homer] came home [from the war front] so changed that his best friends did not know him." Homer's mother
Winslow Homer. (Reproduced by permission of Corbis-Bettmann.)

Winslow Homer was one of the most famous and respected American artists of the nineteenth century. He is best known for the dramatic paintings that he created from the 1880s until his death in 1910. These works emphasized mankind's relationship with a natural world that could be both beautiful and violent. But the first works composed by Homer to receive critical acclaim were actually created many years earlier, during the American Civil War. His drawings and paintings of that period showed the harsh life of Civil War soldiers in an honest and sympathetic way. Today, Homer's wartime paintings and...