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Associated Press released a story several weeks past ago that will forever influence value placed on traditional American paintings. According to the NY Times, Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates paid more than $30 million to John Spoor Broome, a business man from Southern California, for "Lost on the Grand Banks," the last major seascape by Winslow Homer still in private hands.
catboat1
Sailing the Catboat - 1875

The private sale price easily broke the previous record for American Art of $11.1 million paid two years ago for John Singer's "Cashmere." Broome purchased the picture from his grandmother back in the 1940's. Measuring 32" by 50" Homer's painting portrays two rain-hat clad fishermen peering over the side of their small rowboat at dangerous choppy seas.

A critic from the "Art Review" wrote about the painting in 1886:

"Winslow Homer shows in his "Lost on the Great Banks" a rude vigor and firm force that is almost a tonic in the midst of the namby-pambyism of many of his other pictures. The utter simplicity of the composition, the fidelity to local coloring, and spirited rendering of the wave tossed boat and its anxious occupants-these are elements characteristic of Mr. Homer's work, but always welcome because Mr. Homer always has something to say."

Homer had much to say. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, February 24, 1836, mostly self-educated, at age 19 Homer served as an apprentice engraver with the firm of "J. H. Bufford" illustrating sheet music covers. Upon graduation he went to work for "Ballou's Pictorial," then moved on to "Harper's Weekly," to work as a Civil War correspondent from the front. Copies of magazines and other items containing Homer's prints are much sought after today and can occasionally be found for bargain prices.

One of Homer's first paintings, "Prisoners From the Front," was exhibited to rave reviews at exhibitions in NY (1865) and in Paris (1867). Now hanging the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it depicts a young Union officer looking over a prideful band of captured confederate soldiers. Among Homer's other paintings in oil are; "The Morning Bell" (circa 1866) which can be viewed at the Yale University Art Gallery, "Snap the Whip" (1872) exhibited at the Met, and "Eight Bells" (1886) which can be viewed at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts.

His watercolors, perhaps his greatest media, include "Inside the Bar," "The Voice from the Cliffs," "The Wrecking of a Vessel." A special exhibit, "Masters of Color and Light: Homer, Sargent, and the American Watercolor Movement" is being sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The show traces the medium's history in America, featuring its brilliant effects in the hands of Homer.
(editors note: the Brooklyn Museum of Art exhibit was through October 1998)

Winslow Homer painted the sea and he painted the American character. His work is a meditation on life and nearness of death. Homer spent many of his years at rocky promontory on the Maine coast called Prout's Neck. He was a recluse, preferring in his later years to paint storms instead of sunny skies. If an artist can be compared to a writer, Homer was Hemingway-simple, to the point, distinctly American. Now that genre of art has acquired a price level comparable to records set by the Great Masters and French impressionists. Led by Winslow Homer, American painting has found its true level.

Links to a museum tour of Winslow Homer's art