The Gulf Stream
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.In the autumn of 1899, about seven months after he returned from a second trip to the Bahamas, Homer wrote a friend: "I painted in watercolors three months last winter at Nassau . . . & have now just commenced arranging a picture from some of the studies." In this watercolor, probably created around that time, Homer brings together the essential elements that appear in the finished oil painting (on view nearby): a solitary figure stranded on the deck of a dramatically tilted, dismasted boat as a massive shark menaces. To create this work—and the final composition of The Gulf Stream—Homer also revisited sketches and watercolors from his first trip to the Bahamas, fifteen years earlier, several of which are also displayed in this gallery.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Gulf Stream
- Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine)
- Date: probably 1899
- Culture: American
- Medium: Watercolor and graphite on wove paper
- Dimensions: 11 5/16 x 20 in. (28.8 x 50.9 cm)
- Credit Line: The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection (1933.1241)
- Rights and Reproduction: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing