Winslow Homer. After the Hurricane, Bahamas, 1899. Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection.

This website invites you to explore for yourself the Homer watercolors that were examined at the Art Institute. High resolution images allow you to pan and zoom in on the artist’s fascinating surfaces in a way that would be difficult to do with the original watercolors. Additional tools and resources associated with each image provide access to the technical and art historical information compiled by the Art Institute’s research team. Their findings are further elaborated in the loan exhibition Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light (February 16-May 11, 2008) and in the corresponding book of the same title, published by The Art Institute of Chicago in 2008.

Research on Winslow Homer’s watercolors at the Art Institute was carried out by the following interdisciplinary team: Martha Tedeschi, Curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings; Kristi Dahm, Assistant Conservator of Prints and Drawings; Karen Huang, Research and Exhibition Assistant; Francesca Casadio, Conservation Scientist; and Judith Walsh, guest author, Associate Professor, Paper Conservation, Buffalo State, SUNY.

This website has been made possible by a grant from the Community Associates of the Art Institute of Chicago, to whom we extend our thanks.