Lost on the Grand Banks
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Strikingly simple and forceful in its compositional focus—one writer referred to it as "an element of greatness"—this mature work completes a trio of visual tales of labor, conflict, and disaster, including The Fog Warning (1885, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), on view nearby, and The Herring Net (1885, Art Institute of Chicago). A celebrated painting during Homer’s lifetime, Lost on the Grand Banks is also the most unusual of these "noble epic" images of North Atlantic fishermen. It features a stark confrontation between men and nature as well as an implication of unknown fates, with Homer’s protagonists negotiating survival amid the darkest shades of despair. In this way, it anticipates the inconclusive narrative and "grim intensity" a viewer ascribed to The Gulf Stream more than a decade later.
Artwork Details
- Title: Lost on the Grand Banks
- Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine)
- Date: 1885
- Culture: American
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 31 ½ x 49 3/8 in. (80 x 125.4 cm)
Framed: 41 x 62 x 5.75 in. (104.1 x 157.5 x 14.6 cm) - Credit Line: Private collection
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing