Coming Away: Winslow Homer and England

The 19th-century painter Winslow Homer (1836-1910) is one of the most beloved figures in American art, perhaps most associated with the pastoral beauty of rural America and his dramatic Maine seascapes. The new exhibition Coming Away: Winslow Homer and England, opening March 1 and on view through May 20, 2018 at the Milwaukee Art Museum, explores how English artists and Homer’s nearly two-year stay in the seaside village of Cullercoats, England, impacted the style and subjects of the artist’s work for the rest of his career.

Fifty works by Winslow Homer are featured in the exhibition, including a selection of some of his most famous early scenes of independent farmers and outdoorsmen, as well as women at leisure and mischievous country children at play. Displayed alongside the art that Homer developed while in Cullercoats and the dramatic seascapes that marked his career after he returned to the United States, the exhibition demonstrates the great shift in Homer’s painting that his time in England inspired.

The exhibition brings together many of Homer’s most beloved and famous works, such as The Cotton Pickers, on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Lifeline from the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Musée d'Orsay’s Summer Night; as well as many of the artist’s late seascapes that so deeply influenced American modernists. Also included are paintings by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, George Henry Boughton, Jules Adolphe Breton and Joseph Mallord William Turner—works that show the range of international influences that Homer embraced—alongside English photographs, which Homer consumed and became fascinated with during his stay abroad.

Supporting Events

Public Opening: Meijer Free First Thursday

Thursday, March 1, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.

1:30 p.m. Lecture

With Brandon Ruud, Abert Family Curator of American Art

30-Min. Express Talks

Meijer Free First Thursdays

Thursday, April 5 and May 3, noon and 5:30 p.m.

Gallery Talks

Tuesday, March 6 and May 15, 1:30 p.m.

With Brandon Ruud, Abert Family Curator of American Art

Tuesday, April 17, 1:30 p.m.

Take a look at the exhibition from multiple perspectives, with Brandon Ruud and Amanda Brown, collection manager of works on paper; Ariel Pate, assistant curator of photography; and Catherine Sawinski, assistant curator of European art.

Tuesday, May 1, 1:30 p.m.

Explore the nineteenth-century fashion depicted in the works, with costume scholar Debra Mancoff.

Lectures

Winslow Homer: International Man of Mystery

Thursday, April 5, 6:15 p.m.

Winslow Homer stands as one of the most important—and most famous—painters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and yet, his life remains shrouded in mystery: he kept few records and little correspondence from him exists. Explore some of the motivations that inspired this international man of mystery to travel and stay in England, with Sarah Burns, Ruth N. Halls Professor Emeritus, Indiana University Bloomington.

Winslow Homer, Ben Shahn and American Genre Painting

Thursday, May 3, 6:15 p.m.

Winslow Homer has frequently been credited as an inspiration by early twentieth-century American modernist painters, who cite the abstract, expressive qualities of his late paintings. Yet American social realists also saw the artist as a kindred spirit, seeing in his depictions of laborers a way to advance social reform. Take a closer look at the influence of Homer’s works on generations of artists, with John Fagg, lecturer, Department of English Literature, and director, American and Canadian Studies Centre, University of Birmingham.

Local Luminaries: The Peril and Promise of Water

Thursday, April 19, 6:15 p.m.

Visit the exhibition with four distinguished guests as they offer new perspectives for understanding the works on view. Welcome John Gurda, Milwaukee writer and historian; John A. Janssen from UW-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences; Chris Crain, Milwaukee-based musician, and Mary Miss, New York–based artist and pioneer behind Milwaukee’s Watermarks project.