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Collection

Director's Choice: A Fresh Look at Winslow Homer

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Artist(s): Winslow Homer (Boston, MA, Feb 24, 1836 - Sep 29, 1910, Prout's Neck, Scarboro, ME)
Title: The Army of the Potomac - A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty from Harper's Weekly, November 15, 1862
Date: 1862
Dimensions: 9 1/8 in. x 13 3/4 in. (23.18 cm x 34.93 cm)
Medium: Wood engraving on wove paper
Credit Line: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, Purchased as the gift of Warren P. Snyder (PA 1936), 1990.6
Location: On view in Gallery 202

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

Exhibitions: Man Up! Visualizing Masculinity in 19th-Century America
Periods and Styles: MLC Portfolio: Civil War
Themes: Gender
Themes: MLC Portfolio: Images and the Media
Artists: Winslow Homer
Exhibitions: Regarding America: 19th Century Art from the Permanent Collection

Object Information

In 1861, Hiram Berdan of New York recruited and trained the first unit of
Union sharpshooters. Required to place ten shots within five inches
of a bull’s-eye at 200 yards with a Sharps rifle, sharpshooters were first
employed by the Union during the peninsular campaign, a major operation
launched in southeasternVirginia from March through July of 1862.
Here, Winslow Homer portrays an isolated sharpshooter perched in a
tree aiming at a distant target. This dramatic illustration highlights
the power and efficiency of this new military tactic while suggesting a
compelling narrative beyond the image’s frame. Homer later reflected on
sharpshooters in a letter to friend George G. Briggs on 19 February 1896:
“I looked through one of their rifles once when they were in a peach
orchard in front of Yorktown in April 1862—.... I was not a soldier—but a
camp follower & artist, the above impression struck me as being as near
murder as anything I ever could think of in connection with the army & I
always had a horror of that branch of service.”

Exhibition History

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Winslow Homer at the Addison, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/12/1990 - 7/31/1990
Director's Choice: A Fresh Look at Winslow Homer, Addison Gallery of American Art, 9/7/2004 - 2/27/2005
From the Front Line, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1/9/2007 - 4/15/2007
The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues, Addison Gallery of American Art, 10/15/2011 - 4/15/2012
Stone, Wood, Metal, Mesh: Prints and Printmaking, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1/19/2013 - 3/17/2013
Man Up! Visualizing Masculinity in 19th-Century America, Addison Gallery of American Art, 12/21/2019 - 4/5/2020
Regarding America: 19th Century Art from the Permanent Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/23/2022 - 7/31/2022

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