Currently not on view
Eastern Point Light,
1880
Winslow Homer, 1836–1910; born Boston, MA; died Prouts Neck, ME
x1957-116
Eastern Point Light belongs to an extraordinary series of bold and experimental watercolors painted by Homer on Ten Pound Island, off Gloucester, Massachusetts, during the summer of 1880. These works show Homer pushing himself to achieve an unprecedented expressiveness, occasionally verging on abstraction. This moonlit seascape stands out from the numerous brilliantly colored sunset scenes in the series with its monochromatic palette of blues and blacks set off by whites. For these, Homer employed various techniques, including dragging a relatively dry brush quickly across the sheet to allow the plain surface to show through. In the area of the water there is evidence that Homer used the end of his brush to gouge out some of the wet pigment to capture the dappled light, while the circle of the full moon appears to have been scraped out. Soon after completing this masterful watercolor, Homer traveled to the northeast coast of England where he spent almost two years depicting the sea, which became the dominant theme of his later work.
Information
Title
Eastern Point Light
Dates
1880
Maker
Medium
Watercolor over graphite
Dimensions
24.6 x 34.1 cm (9 11/16 x 13 7/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Alastair B. Martin, Class of 1938
Object Number
x1957-116
Place Depicted
United States, Massachusetts, Eastern Point Light
Culture
Type
Materials
Probably 1880 (Lloyd Goodrich); The artist's brother, Charles S. Homer; his wife, Mrs. Charles S. Homer; her nephew, Charles L. Homer; Hirschl & Adler, New York; Alastair B. Martin, March 1956
Schooners in Moonlight
- American water color society: fourteenth annual exhibition, (New York: National Academy of Design, 1881)., no. 540
- William Howe Downes, The Life and Works of Winslow Homer, (Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin company, 1911)., p. 94
- Century loan exhibition as a memorial to Winslow Homer, (Prouts Neck, ME: Prouts Neck Association, 1936)., Reproduced as no. 7 ("Schooners at Sunset, 1880", but this number and title belong to another picture, with the preroduction being this one--accession card note)
- Theodore Bolton, "The life portraits of James Madison", William and Mary Quarterly 8, no. 1 (Jan., 1951): p. 25-47.
- The art of Winslow Homer: an exhibition of paintings sponsored jointly by the art departments of Bowdoin and Colby Colleges, (Brunswick, ME?: Bowdoin College: Colby College, 1954).
- Frances Follin Jones, "Recent aquisitions of Ancient Art", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, 17, no. 1 (1958): p. 41–43., p. 43
- John Walker, James J. Rorimer and Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, Winslow Homer: a retrospective exhibition, (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian institution, 1958). , no. 102
- Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, Winslow Homer, American artist: his world and his work, (New York: C. N. Potter, 1961)., p. 94 (illus.)
- Barbara T. Ross, American Drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University: 130 Selected Examples (Princeton: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1976)., p. 132
- Gordon Hendricks, The Life and Work of Winslow Homer, (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1979)., p. 304, CL-366 (illus.)
- Ziba de Weck, Winslow Homer and the New England coast: November 9, 1984-January 9, 1985, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fairfield County, (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1984)., fig. 7; p. 5-6
- John Wilmerding et al., Winslow Homer in the 1870s: Selections from the Valentine-Pulsifer Collection, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1990).,
- Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Winslow Homer: watercolors, (Southport, CT?: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1991)., p. 45 (illus.)
- Winslow Homer, water and light: selected watercolors, 1874-1897, (Miami, FL: Center for the Fine Arts Association, 1991)., p. 10-11 (illus.)
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Charles Colbert, "Winslow Homer: reluctant modern," Winterthur portfolio 38, no. 1 (Spring 2003): p. 37-55.
, fig. 12; p. 51 (illus.) - John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 335, checklist no. 763 (illus.)
- Valerie Ann Leeds and Hollis Koons McCullough, By the light of the moon: the paintings of Ray Ellis, (Savannah, Ga.: Compass Publishing, 2007)., p. 16 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 24 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 298
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American Drawings In The Art Museum, Princeton University (October 3, 1976 - November 28, 1976)
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Winslow Homer and the New England Coast (November 9, 1984 - January 9, 1985)
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Winslow Homer Watercolors (National Gallery of Art, March 2- May 11, 1986; Amon Carter Museum, June 6-July 27, 1986; Yale University Art Gallery, September 11-November 2, 1986)
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West to Wesselmann: American Drawings and Watercolors from the Princeton University Art Museum (October 16, 2004–July 23, 2006)
