id: 131337 accession number: 1954.128 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1954.128 updated: 2023-08-25 11:18:35.922000 Boy with Anchor, 1873. Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910). Watercolor and gouache with graphite; sheet: 19.4 x 34.9 cm (7 5/8 x 13 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund 1954.128 title: Boy with Anchor title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1873 creation date earliest: 1873 creation date latest: 1873 current location: creditline: Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund copyright: --- culture: America, 19th century technique: watercolor and gouache with graphite department: Drawings collection: DR - American 19th Century type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910) - artist --- measurements: Sheet: 19.4 x 34.9 cm (7 5/8 x 13 3/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: beige(2) wove paper watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: signed, lower right, in black watercolor: homer 1873; signed, lower right, in black watercolor: homer 18[illegible, partially painted out] translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Water Color opening date: 1962-06-06T04:00:00 Water Color. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 6-August 27, 1962). title: Winslow Homer: Portrait of America opening date: 1965-11-10T05:00:00 Winslow Homer: Portrait of America. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 10, 1965-May 16, 1966). title: Eight American Masters of Watercolor: Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Maurice B. Prendergast, John Marin, Arthur G. Dove, Charles Demuth, Charles E. Burchfield, Andrew Wyeth opening date: 1968-04-23T05:00:00 Eight American Masters of Watercolor: Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Maurice B. Prendergast, John Marin, Arthur G. Dove, Charles Demuth, Charles E. Burchfield, Andrew Wyeth. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (April 23-June 16, 1968); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (June 28-August 18, 1968); Seattle Art Museum (September 5-October 13, 1968). title: Winslow Homer opening date: 1995-10-15T04:00:00 Winslow Homer. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (October 15, 1995-January 28, 1996); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (February 21-May 26, 1996). title: Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2000-08-27T00:00:00 Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). title: Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light opening date: 2008-02-16T00:00:00 Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (organizer) (February 16-May 11, 2008). title: Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2014-03-09T00:00:00 Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE John M. Hay [1838-1910], former Secretary of State, Washington, D.C. date: ?-? footnotes: citations: Mrs. C. E. Meder (a household employee of John M. Hay), Kirtland, OH, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art. date: ?-1954 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH. date: 1954- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: The mottled texture of the sky is an example of Homer’s blotting technique—a subtractive process in which he applied a wash of water, sprinkled some breadcrumbs, and then gently rubbed the paper with his fingers in order to absorb the extra color, leaving behind a granulated texture. digital description: In this work from a series of watercolors produced in Gloucester, MA, in the summer of 1873 Winslow Homer evokes the fraught nature of the local fishing industry by focusing not on the perilous work of adults, but rather the children they leave behind. In Boy with Anchor, the massive anchor pointing toward the sea foreshadows the weight of the boy’s maritime destiny. The work is an early example of Homer's talent for evoking atmospheric effects and his interest in technical variety. Presumably working outdoors, Homer layered fluent washes of blue, gray, and brown transparent watercolor over his graphite underdrawing to flesh out the beach and sky. He built up the hot, pebble-studded surface of the beach by using dense gouache to draw textural detail and created the broken cloud pattern in the sky by lightly blotting his wet blue wash. The picture’s formal tensions between warm and cool colors, outline and wash, and transparency and opacity mirror the emotional tension of the scene. wall description: Like A Fisherman’s Daughter, this watercolor belongs to a series of works depicting the children of Gloucester, the nation’s busiest seaport. At this time, fishing had become extremely hazardous, as boats ventured ever further offshore to haul in large catches. The massive anchor pointing toward the sea foreshadows the weight of the boy’s maritime destiny. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS “Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, October - December, 1953.” The Art Quarterly 17, no. 2 (Summer 1954): 179-190. page number: Mentioned: p. 180 url: Francis, Henry S. "Recent Additions to the Collection of Homer." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 42, no. 3 (1955): 51-54. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 52-53 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 561 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n105 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. page number: Reproduced: p. 186 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n210 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. page number: Reproduced: p. 186 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n210 The Cleveland Museum of Art, Celeste Adams, Rita Myers, and Adele Z. Silver. An Introduction to American Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1972. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 10-11. url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 231 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n251 Hendricks, Gordon. The Life and Work of Winslow Homer. New York: Harry N. Abram, 1979. page number: Reproduced: Plate CL-554, p. 318 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art and Michael J. Miller. Drawing, A Glossary of Materials: Selections from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 17-18 url: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, D. Scott Atkinson, and Jochen Wierich. Winslow Homer in Gloucester. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1990. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 41, fig. 31 url: Placidi, Kathleen S. "Beyond Bootblacks: "The Boat Builder" and the Art of John George Brown." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 10 (1990): 366-82. page number: Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 370-71 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161306 Cikovsky, Nicolai, Franklin Kelly, and Winslow Homer. Winslow Homer. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1995. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: no. 68, p. 137 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 86, p. 8, pp. 208-209, p. 295 url: Johns, Elizabeth. Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: no. 45, p. 75 url: The Art Institute of Chicago, Martha Tedeschi, and Kristi Dahm. Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 44, p. 46, no. 11 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1954.128/1954.128_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1954.128/1954.128_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1954.128/1954.128_full.tif