From Publishers Weekly
Though certainly more famous for his oil paintings, Winslow Homer was one of the first major artists to take watercolor seriously and to herald its acceptance in the 20th century as an art form in its own right, undertaken by stars like O'Keeffe, Prendergast and Hopper. Nearly 700 of his watercolors survive; 150-some are reproduced in The Watercolors of Winslow Homer by Miles Unger, a contributing New York Times critic. It's clear why these paintings, which seem like top-drawer book or magazine illustrations, hover in relative obscurity: the thin quality of the paint doesn't enrich Homer's rural and sea-faring subjects as does the texture he wrought from oil and canvas. But serious fans of turn-of-the-century American art will be delighted with this high-quality collection and Unger's learned text. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Winslow Homer is without a doubt one of America's best-known artists and a popular subject for study. The freshness, vitality, and magnitude of Homer's watercolor paintings set them apart from his other celebrated works in graphic art and oil painting, and Unger, former editor of Art New England and a contributor to the New York Times, reemphasizes the history and significance of these paintings. Unger's writing is both lively and informed. But any assessment of Homer's watercolors owes a great debt to the scholarship of Lloyd Goodrich (Winslow Homer, Whitney Museum of Art, 1944) and Helen Cooper (Winslow Homer Watercolors, National Gallery of Art, 1986), and this work is no exception. The real strength of this book lies in the illustrations. Unger includes 140 of the nearly 700 Homer watercolors, including many lesser-known works representing the Gloucester coast, Prout's Neck, the Adirondacks, and the Bahamas. While Cooper's remains the definitive survey of Homer's watercolors, Unger has added an intelligent examination that beautifully illuminates some of the more obscure of the artist's works. Recommended especially for public libraries. Kraig Binkowski, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
Winslow Homer's watercolors rank among the greatest pictorial legacies of this country. Winslow Homer's first medium was oil painting, although to make ends meet, he did commercial illustration and chronicled the New York City social scene. Eventually, Homer withdrew from city life altogether to settle at Prout's Neck on the rocky New England coast. There he turned to watercolor, in part for financial reasons (watercolors were easier to sell), but the newly popular medium also enabled him to capture his impressions of scenery and landscapes encountered during his many travels with an immediacy and directness impossible in the more time-consuming oils. Of his more than 700 watercolors, over 140 are reproduced here, dating from the 1870s to the turn of the century and ranging from pastoral to narrative, dramatic to serene. Miles Unger's text provides insight into the artist's technical mastery of the medium and discusses the importance of Homer's watercolors within the larger body of his work. 140 color illustrations.

About the Author
Miles Unger is the former managing editor of Art New England and a frequent contributor to the New York Times as well as other national publications.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Watercolors of Winslow Homer examines the artist's spectacular achievement in the medium, beginning in 1873 with his earliest watercolors depicting the carefree life of children playing at the shore, and concluding with the sparkling images he painted in the first years of the twentieth century that capture the tropical lushness of Florida, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. Along the way, Homer's watercolors embraced the variety of American life, from the New England coast to the rustic farms of upstate New York and Virginia. Homer's brush pictured both the genteel world of fashionable young ladies and the Adirondacks forests where rugged lumbermen and hunters plied their trade. Homer's travels also took him to the English coast where he painted somber, monumental watercolors of the storm-swept sea, and late in life to the Caribbean where the warm sun inspired some of his most colorful and sensuous works. Above all, Homer was a confirmed outdoorsman, and the watercolors he painted in the forests and lakes of the Adirondacks and Quebec are among the most profound evocations of natural beauty ever created.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Though certainly more famous for his oil paintings, Winslow Homer was one of the first major artists to take watercolor seriously and to herald its acceptance in the 20th century as an art form in its own right, undertaken by stars like O'Keeffe, Prendergast and Hopper. Nearly 700 of his watercolors survive; 150-some are reproduced in The Watercolors of Winslow Homer by Miles Unger, a contributing New York Times critic. It's clear why these paintings, which seem like top-drawer book or magazine illustrations, hover in relative obscurity: the thin quality of the paint doesn't enrich Homer's rural and sea-faring subjects as does the texture he wrought from oil and canvas. But serious fans of turn-of-the-century American art will be delighted with this high-quality collection and Unger's learned text. (Oct. 22) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal