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Collection

Heaven and Earth

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Artist(s): Winslow Homer (Boston, MA, Feb 24, 1836 - Sep 29, 1910, Prout's Neck, Scarboro, ME)
Title: The West Wind
Date: 1891
Dimensions: 30 in. x 44 in. (76.2 cm x 111.76 cm)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Credit Line: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, Gift of anonymous donor, 1928.24
Location: On view in Gallery 204

This object is a member of the following groups (click any group name to view all objects in that group):

Exhibitions: Regarding America: 19th Century Art from the Permanent Collection
Artists: Winslow Homer
Exhibitions: 4 x 4
Themes: MLC Portfolio: Visualizing Poetry
Exhibitions: Learning to Look: The Addison at 90
Themes: MLC Portfolio: Representing the Land
Themes: MLC Portfolio: Visualizing Music

Object Information

In 1891, during a period when he was painting the Prout’s Neck coast in Maine with dramatic and powerful results, Homer executed <i>The West Wind</i>, arguably one of his finest marine paintings. The concept of the human figure set off against rocks, wind, sea, and sky is one that Homer explored in a number of paintings in 1890 and 1891. Some of these works caught people engaged in leisurely pastimes, others set one or two figures against rocky cliffsoverlooking breaking waves below.

In <i>The West Wind</i> the relationship of figure and elements is less benign. The figure, small and anonymous, with her back to us, balanced precariously at the edge of the cliff, her feet hidden by the drop in land, her cape whipped by the wind. Energized strokes of color dash across the foreground in a rush of fluid paint to capture the sense of the oncoming gale. The control of both composition and color is sure and the subtlety of tone against tone masterful, as olive sweeps of grass, punctuated by shocks of red twigs, form compelling diagonals rising to the left. The figure at shore’s edge and the low central shrub, given form by mosaic-like dabs of greens and browns, lean right in counterbalance to the direction of the wind. Finally a plume of palest blue sea spray lifts rightward against the sky. In the highly controlled and reduced composition, figure, shrub, and salt spray, set one behind the other, thrust powerfully to the right against the left-rising diagonals of cliff edge and whipping wind. Land, man, water, and wind are held in a timeless balance.

Exhibition History

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, National Exposition Commission, 5/1/1893 - 10/30/1893
Thomas B. Clarke Auction, American Art Association, 2/14/1899 - 2/18/1899
Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Winslow Homer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2/6/1911 - 3/19/1911
Winslow Homer Centenary Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, 12/15/1936 - 1/15/1937
Winslow Homer Exhibition, Worcester Art Museum, 11/15/1944 - 12/17/1944
Winslow Homer, Wildenstein and Co., Inc., 2/19/1947 - 3/22/1947
Campus Taste in Art [Student Taste in Art], Addison Gallery of American Art, 2/16/1951 - 3/12/1951
American Painting 1804-1954, Ohio University College of Fine Arts, 5/1/1954 - 6/15/1954
Winslow Homer Exhibition, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 11/1/1954 - 11/21/1954
Scope in Collecting [25th Anniversary Exhibition], Addison Gallery of American Art, 10/19/1956 - 12/24/1956
Living with Design, Addison Gallery of American Art, 10/22/1959 - 10/23/1959
American Painting, 1865-1905, The Art Gallery of Toronto, 1/5/1961 - 6/18/1961
Landscape in Art: Origin and Development, Columbia Museum of Art and Gibbes Planetarium, 1/17/1967 - 2/26/1967
Precursors of Modernism in Western Hemisphere Art: 1860-1930, Center for Inter-American Relations, 9/13/1967 - 11/12/1967
The Works, Addison Gallery of American Art, 11/7/1969 - 2/22/1970
Winslow Homer, Whitney Museum of American Art, 4/3/1973 - 10/21/1973
Works by Winslow Homer, Addison Gallery of American Art, 11/16/1973 - 12/16/1973
Nothing is Certain But Change, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/18/1975 - 5/18/1975
Winslow Homer, Albert P. Ryder, Thomas Eakins, Addison Gallery of American Art, 12/12/1980 - 1/4/1980
Masterworks from the Collection: 50th Anniversary Exhibition, Addison Gallery of American Art, 5/9/1981 - 6/14/1981
Andover Garden Club, Addison Gallery of American Art, 11/5/1982 - 11/7/1982
The New England Eye: Master American Paintings from New England School, College , Williams College Museum of Art, 9/9/1983 - 11/13/1983
Raymond Saunders: Addison Delectations, Addison Gallery of American Art, 2/19/1988 - 3/20/1988
Winslow Homer at the Addison, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/12/1990 - 7/31/1990
Winslow Homer in the 1890s: Prout's Neck Observed, Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, 8/18/1990 - 9/2/1991
Point of View: Landscapes from the Addison Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 10/16/1992 - 12/20/1992
Revisiting the White City: American Art at the World's Fair, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 4/16/1993 - 8/15/1993
Masterworks from the Permanent Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1/21/1994 - 4/3/1994
Winslow Homer, National Gallery of Art, 10/15/1995 - 9/22/1996
Addison Gallery of American Art: 65 Years, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/13/1996 - 7/31/1996
The Constructed Photograph: Jo Babcock, Gillian Brown, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Doug Prince, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1/17/1997 - 3/23/1997
Framing America's Landscapes: Painting from the Addison Gallery of American Art, Addison Gallery of American Art, 11/20/1998 - 7/31/1999
Masterworks from the Permanent Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 2/22/2000 - 3/26/2000
Explorar el Edén: Paisaje Americano del Siglo XIX, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 9/29/2000 - 1/14/2001
The American Land: Selections from the Addison Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1/19/2001 - 4/8/2001
Explorations, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/7/2001 - 7/31/2001
Explorations: Paintings, Drawings, and Prints in the Addison, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/4/2001 - 1/13/2002
Place and Perceptions, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/16/2002 - 7/31/2002
Figure/Space: Selected Works from the Addison, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/3/2002 - 12/29/2002
Conversations: A Collection in Dialogue, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1/7/2003 - 7/31/2003
Working from Nature, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/19/2003 - 1/4/2004
Art, Artists, and the Addison: Building a Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 3/30/2004 - 7/31/2004
Director's Choice: A Fresh Look at Winslow Homer, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/7/2004 - 2/27/2005
Eye on the Collection: West to Hopper, Addison Gallery of American Art, 6/17/2005 - 10/16/2005
Toward Abstraction, Addison Gallery of American Art, 12/23/2005 - 3/26/2006
75 Years of Giving, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/11/2006 - 7/31/2006
Coming of Age: American Art, 1850s to 1950s, American Federation of Arts, 9/9/2006 - 9/7/2009
Mix and Match: A Conversation between Paintings and Works on Paper, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1/23/2007 - 4/8/2007
So Long, Farewell, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/7/2007 - 7/31/2007
Expanding Horizons: American and Canadian Painting and Photography: 1860-1918, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, 6/18/2009 - 9/27/2009
Inside, Outside, Upstairs, Downstairs: The Addison Anew, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/7/2010 - 3/27/2011
80 @ 80 , Addison Gallery of American Art, 10/15/2011 - 12/31/2011
Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine, Portland Museum of Art, 9/22/2012 - 12/30/2012
Eye on the Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1/19/2013 - 3/10/2013
Eye on the Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/27/2013 - 7/31/2013
Natural Selections, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/14/2013 - 3/16/2014
[Permanent Collection 201-5], Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/12/2014 - 7/31/2014
Exterior Spaces, Interior Places, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/2/2014 - 1/4/2015
Heaven and Earth, Addison Gallery of American Art, 2/7/2015 - 4/5/2015
Searching for the Real, Addison Gallery of American Art, 5/30/2015 - 7/31/2015
Selections from the Permanent Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/12/2015 - 3/13/2016
Selections from the Permanent Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/30/2016 - 7/31/2016
Eye on the Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/1/2016 - 3/19/2017
Eye on the Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/1/2017 - 7/30/2017
Coming Away: Winslow Homer and England, Milwaukee Art Museum, 11/11/2017 - 5/20/2018
4 x 4, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/1/2018 - 7/31/2019
Natural Forces: Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington, Denver Art Museum, 6/26/2020 - 2/28/2021
Learning to Look: The Addison at 90, Addison Gallery of American Art, 5/8/2021 - 2/6/2022
Regarding America: 19th Century Art from the Permanent Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/23/2022 - 7/31/2022

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