Winslow Homer (1836–1910) is celebrated for his powerful paintings and watercolors, yet in the 1880s he turned to etching to revisit some of his most iconic subjects. From his studio at Prouts Neck, Maine, now preserved and interpreted by the Portland Museum of Art, Homer collaborated with New York printer George W. H. Ritchie to produce a concise but striking series of prints that reveal his technical mastery and his continued fascination with the sea and wider natural world.

Winslow Homer: Painter, Etcher presents these rare etchings in dialogue with related paintings, drawings, and proofs, offering visitors the opportunity to see how Homer’s Maine studio influenced his process and compositional choices. Through careful display, the exhibition evokes the environment where these prints were conceived, connecting audiences to the physical and creative context of Homer’s work.

 

“As good work . . . as I ever did.”

— Winslow Homer, on his etchings

 

Winslow Homer (United States, 1836–1910), Eight Bells, 1887, etching and drypoint with scraping, stopping out, burnishing, and selective wiping in black ink on parchment, image: 18 3/4 x 24 1/4 inches; sheet: 23 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches. Portland Museum of Art, Maine. Museum purchase with support from the Peggy and Harold Osher Acquisition Fund and partial gift of Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan W. Pratt, 2014.3. Image courtesy Pillar Digital Imaging

The exhibition highlights Homer’s role in exploring the circulation of images in late nineteenth-century America while shedding light on a practice the artist himself regarded among his finest achievements. As steward of the Winslow Homer Studio and a landmark collection of his work, the PMA is uniquely positioned to foreground this pivotal chapter in the artist’s career.

A fully illustrated catalogue, the first comprehensive study of Homer’s etchings, will accompany the exhibition, co-published by the PMA and Yale University Press.

 

ABOUT THE CURATOR  

Ramey Mize is Associate Curator of American art at the Portland Museum of Art. She specializes in art of the Americas from the nineteenth century to the present day, with a focus on cultural exchange, expressions of place, and the intersections between U.S. and Indigenous art. Her curatorial practice is dedicated to expanding and reimagining the field, notably through the reinstallation project Passages in American Art (2023) and the exhibition Jeremy Frey: Woven (2024), which she co-curated with Jaime DeSimone. Before joining the PMA, Mize was the Lois and Arthur Stainman Research Assistant in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American Wing, where she supported the exhibition Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents (2022). Her research and curatorial work have also been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Center for Craft, the Thoma Foundation, and the Terra and Wyeth Foundations for American Art, among others. She holds a BA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

Individual Support: 

Isabelle and Scott Black 

Foundation Support:  

 

The Lunder Foundation—The Peter and Paula Lunder Family 

Winslow Homer and the Poetics of Place

Winslow Homer Book of Postcards

Coming Away: Winslow Homer and England

Sharpshooter, 1863 by Winslow Homer Framed Poster