Winslow Homer: Artist and Angler [Hardcover]

Patricia Junker (Author), Sarah Burns (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2003

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Homer's reputation has been on the rise lately, with his quintessentially "American" watercolors and drawings the subjects of major retrospectives revealing the breadth of his achievement. This volume takes a narrower look, by focusing on the place of fish and fishing in Homer's life and work. Junker is curator of paintings and sculpture at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and Burns is a professor of fine arts at Indiana University, Bloomington. This catalogue accompanies their co-curated exhibition of the same name, opening in December 2002 in San Francisco before moving on to Fort Worth. It covers everything from Homer's fishing camp in Prout's Neck, Maine, to the trout illustrations from which Homer copped some of his pictorial fish. Of its 184 illustrations, 123 are in color, with an emphasis on full-page reproduction of watercolors, including The Angler (1874), showing a raffish, bearded man casting with panache into a cascading river. While the quality of the scholarship is undeniable, this book's appeal will likely be limited to piscatorially inclined figurative art enthusiasts-which, judging from the amount of cable TV devoted to fishing and painting, may not be an insignificant demographic.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Superb in both words and illustrations. -- Antiques and the Arts Weekly, Stephan May, 25 April 2003

[G]lorious watercolors reproduced here—some of them light and illustrative, some dark and turbulent, some tranquil and brooding. -- Wall Street Journal, 10 January 2003

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson; First Edition edition (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500093075
• ISBN-13: 978-0500093078
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 10.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,502,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Winslow Homer: Outdoorsman, August 16, 2003

By 

Kevin Shelly (Absecon, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Winslow Homer: Artist and Angler (Hardcover)

The art is amazing. And the book is a fine academic effort at explaining Homer.

However, each chapter is authored by a different writer and not every chapter is equally well-crafted. This individual essay format also thwarts any attempt to present a cohesive story arc.

In the end, I still wonder exactly why the outdoors meant so much to Homer; none of the author's fully or successfully explained that crucual detail.

Also, by limiting the book to fishing, the authors have excluded a major portion of Homer's sporting life and artistic inspiration. His hunting pictures are among his most commanding and they get little or no attention in this book. Sport of all sort seems to have informed Homer's life -- and art -- throughout the year; a book simply about his angling art therefore fails to provide a full picture of the man, his life, and his work.

But the stunning art alone is worth the price of admission.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars lovely book, March 23, 2009

By 

Ivens Koen Herman Cecilia (Rome, Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Winslow Homer: Artist and Angler (Paperback)

wonderful reproductions in a most interesting book. I love the art of Winslow Homer but bought this as a present for a friend who is a "fly-fisher". He was very happy with it! Value for money, very well printed.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, October 9, 2008

By 

silky69 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Winslow Homer: Artist and Angler (Paperback)

I found this book to be outstanding. It is packed with good-quality prints of Homer's works. I love his watercolors the most. I haven't read the book yet, but mostly got it for the beautiful paintings. I am very excited to have this book. It's beautiful.