id: 147393
accession number: 1973.142
share license status: CC0
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1973.142
updated: 2022-04-07 20:20:13.601000
Leaping Trout, 1889. Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910). Watercolor over graphite; sheet: 35 x 50.6 cm (13 3/4 x 19 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Anonymous Gift 1973.142
title: Leaping Trout
title in original language:
series:
series in original language:
creation date: 1889
creation date earliest: 1889
creation date latest: 1889
current location:
creditline: Anonymous Gift
copyright:
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culture: America, 19th century
technique: watercolor over graphite
department: Drawings
collection: DR - American 19th Century
type: Drawing
find spot:
catalogue raisonne:
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CREATORS
* Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910) - artist
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measurements: Sheet: 35 x 50.6 cm (13 3/4 x 19 15/16 in.)
state of the work:
edition of the work:
support materials:
description: cream(2) wove paper
watermarks:
inscriptions:
inscription: signed, lower right, in black watercolor: Homer '89
translation:
remark:
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: Year in Review: 1973
opening date: 1974-01-30T05:00:00
Year in Review: 1973. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 30-March 17, 1974).
title: Winslow Homer Watercolors
opening date: 1986-03-02T05:00:00
Winslow Homer Watercolors. Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX (June 6-July 27, 1986); Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (September 11-November 2, 1986).
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); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (June 20-September 22, 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 (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014).
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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
* Winslow Homer. Whitney Museum of American Art (organizer) (April 3- June 3, 1973); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (July 3- August 15, 1973); The Art Institute of Chicago (September 8- October 21, 1973).
* Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 until Today. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art (June 23, 1937 - October 4, 1937).
* Fourth Exhibition of Water Colors and Pastels, Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 17 – March 13, 1927).
* Thirty-two Watercolors Conceived in the Adirondacks. Reichard & Co, New York (February, 1890).
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PROVENANCE
(F.W. Bayley & Son, Boston, MA.)
date: c. 1925
footnotes:
citations:
(Macbeth Gallery, New York, New York, sold to Ralph T. King, Sr. on 5/21/1925.)
date: 2/10/1925-5/21/1925
footnotes:
citations:
Mr. and Mrs. Ralph T. King, Cleveland, OH.
date: 1925-?
footnotes:
citations:
Anonymous donor, purchased from the Ralph T. King, Sr. Collection.
date: After 1937-1973
footnotes:
citations:
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, gift of anonymous donor.
date: 1973-
footnotes:
citations:
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fun fact:
Noted for his technical variety in watercolors, Homer used a technique called scraping—removing softened paint and paper fibers by taking a blunt or sharp object to the paper’s wet surface—to produce the pond’s two glistening white highlights.
digital description:
In 1886, Winslow Homer began to produce oil paintings and watercolors of subjects in the Adirondack Mountains, where he and his brother Charles had fished and hunted since the 1870s. In Leaping Trout, a silvery trout propels itself from the water in pursuit of a hapless insect or a fisherman’s fly. Homer’s choice to adopt the fish’s perspective, rather than a fisherman’s, is quite unconventional and heightens the drama and immediacy of the scene. His technique, influenced by the free brushwork of French Impressionism, similarly animates his still-life subject. Luminous washes of transparent blue and grey watercolor suggest the fish’s iridescent skin, while opaque pricks of bright red on its body lend a decorative effect reminiscent of Japanese prints. On the water’s surface, Homer uses scraping to create two brilliant white highlights, and dry brushing to produce the impression of a reflective surface. Although the overall effect is mysterious and dreamlike, the color and movement of the fish is carefully studied, suggesting Homer’s desire to appeal to the sportsmen who might buy his works.
wall description:
In 1886 Homer and his brother Charles were among a group of 20 charter members of the North Woods Club, a private hunting and fishing preserve along the shore of Mink Lake in upstate New York. Homer produced oils and watercolors of Adirondack subjects, and this drawing belongs to a series depicting leaping trout. Although scenes of trout fishing were common in English and American art of the period, Homer dramatically reconfigured the genre by adopting the viewpoint of a fish, thus intensifying the visual and emotional drama of the scene.
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RELATED WORKS
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CITATIONS
Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of an Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 Until Today. Cleveland, OH: Printed by the Artcraft Printing Co., 1937.
page number: Mentioned: no. 92, p. 26
url:
Whitney Museum of American Art and Lloyd Goodrich. Winslow Homer. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1973.
page number: Mentioned: p. 139, no. 119
url:
"Annual Report for 1973." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 6 (1974): 179-213.
page number: Mentioned: p. 186
url:
"The Year in Review for 1973." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (1974): 31-78.
page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 52, p. 74, no. 36
url:
Hendricks, Gordon. The Life and Work of Winslow Homer. New York: Harry N. Abram, 1979.
page number: Reproduced: Plate CL-561, p. 318
url:
Cooper, Helen A. Winslow Homer Watercolors. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1986.
page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: no. 154, p. 166, p. 252
url:
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1991. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991.
page number: Reproduced: p. 134
url:
Cikovsky, Nicolai. Winslow Homer Watercolors. Southport, Conn.: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1991.
page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 24, color pl. 8
url:
Cikovsky, Nicolai, Franklin Kelly, and Winslow Homer. Winslow Homer. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1995.
page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 266-67, no. 165
url:
Tatham, David, Hallie Bond, and Tom Rosenbauer. Fishing in the North Woods: Winslow Homer. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1995.
page number: Reproduced: p. 47
url:
Tatham, David. Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996.
page number: Mentioned: Appendix B, p. 140
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. 87, pp. 210-211, p. 295; Reproduced: p. 211
url:
Gerdts, Abigail Booth and Lloyd Goodrich. Record of Works by Winslow Homer, vol. 4.2. New York: City University of New York, 2005-2014.
page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 488, no. 1418.
url:
Griffin, Randall C. Winslow Homer: An American Vision. New York: Phaidon Press, Inc., 2006.
page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 147-148
url:
Tedeschi, Martha, Kristi Dahm, Judith Walsh, and Karen Huang. Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2008.
page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 138-139, no. 56
url:
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IMAGES
web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1973.142/1973.142_web.jpg
print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1973.142/1973.142_print.jpg
full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1973.142/1973.142_full.tif