Winslow Homer

This volume and the exhibition it accompanies look closely at Winslow Homer's avid pursuit of fly-fishing and the inspiration that the sport provided for his art. It was fishing that led the eminent painter to three of the locales with which we now associate his name: the Adirondack in northern New York State; Florida; and Quebec. Each of these distinctive regions elicited unique and strong reactions from the painter that took form in works that are brilliant studies of light, atmosphere and the spirit of place. At his favourite fishing spots, Homer worked in the traveller's medium of watercolour, stretching it ever more boldly and unconventionally in order to convey the intensity of his experience of nature, his response to light and atmosphere peculiar to a given region, a specific season and a particular time of day; and his feeling for the physical and psychological demands of his favourite sport. Homer's fly-fishing paintings are an immensely varied and little understood aspect of his art. They serve as a counterpoint to all his other work, especially in the 1880s and beyond when fly-fishing represented a regular and sustained activity for the artist.
Homer's fishing watercolours suggested to him new subject matter, inspiring or at least intensifying, for instance, his interest in commercial fishing and in the lives of the men and women who live by the sea. And his fishing expeditions offered recreation, rejuvenation, solace and camaraderie, which spurred his imagination.