Winslow Homer (1836 – 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is regarded as the greatest American painter of the nineteenth century and he worked extensively in watercolor.
Born in Boston and raised in rural Cambridge, he began his career as a commercial printmaker, first in Boston and then in New York.
His career as illustrator lasted nearly twenty years.
His early works were focused to themes of urban and country social scenes, and latter he painted battle scenes and camp life, from the front lines of the American Civil War (1861–1865). As with his urban scenes, Homer illustrated women during wartime, and showed the effects of the war on the home front.
After the war, Homer was interested to scenes of childhood and young women.
The great themes of his career were the struggle of people against the sea and the relationship of fragile, transient human life to the timelessness of nature.
