Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents from The Met Museum

By Stephanie L. Herdrich and Sylvia Yount with contributions by Daniel Immerwahr, Christopher Riopelle, and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw Long celebrated as the quintessential New England regionalist, Winslow Homer (1836-1910) in fact brushed a much wider canvas, traveling throughout the Atlantic world and frequently engaging in his art with issues of race, imperialism, and the environment. This publication focuses, for the first time, on the watercolors and oil paintings Homer made during visits to Bermuda, Cuba, coastal Florida, and the Bahamas. Among these, The Gulf Stream (1899), often considered the most consequential painting of his career, reveals Homer’s lifelong fascination with struggle and conflict. Recognizing the artist’s keen ability to distill complex issues, Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents upends popular conceptions and convincingly argues that Homer’s work resonates with the challenges of the present day. Stephanie L. Herdrich is Associate Curator of American painting and sculpture, and Sylvia Yount is Lawrence A Fleischman Curator, both of the American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.