Reexamining an Untitled Drawing by Winslow Homer
By Kristen Lauritzen
In an unassuming graphite sketch on slightly weathered paper, a dramatic narrative unfolds: set against a coastal backdrop, figures in heavy weather gear spring into action to save a stranded ship. Small rescue boats rest against the shore, while dynamic lines in the background suggest a stormy sky and crashing waves. This untitled drawing by Winslow Homer likely dates to the early 1880s (ca. 1883), created during the first year of his residence in Prouts Neck, Maine following his time in the fishing village of Cullercoats on the North Sea. In Cullercoats and the nearby town of Tynemouth, Homer witnessed firsthand the tireless work of the fishermen and the treacherous storms that plagued their ships. Prior to the 1880s, Homer’s depictions of storms or shipwrecks focused on the aftermath of the incidents: the drowned woman of The Wreck of the “Atlantic” –Cast Up by the Sea (1873), or the moment of hopeful anticipation captured in Waiting for the Boats (1873). These scenes of a woman lying on the shore or young boys awaiting the arrival of a lost vessel were incited by news reports of the wreck of the Atlantic (1873) and the stranded U.S.S. Huron (1877).[i]
As the artist spent time with the fishermen and the maritime rescuers on the North Sea, his focus turned to scenes highlighting the heroics of the lifesaving crews who braved the sea to save their fellow sailors from certain death. Upon his return from England, Homer spent part of the summer of 1883 in Atlantic City, where he befriended members of local lifesaving teams who introduced him to their new and improved protocols and equipment.[ii] These improvements coincided with an increased concern for maritime safety in the wake of numerous preventable shipwrecks in the 1870s, such as the Atlantic and the Huron. In 1878, the United States Life-Saving Service became an independent agency with an allocated budget and the number of shipwreck casualties drastically decreased. In Homer’s Untitled, he captures a moment of rescue, immortalizing the heroism of one such lifesaving crew.
The Untitled drawing, considered alongside similar drawings Homer created contemporaneously, such as Tense Moments (created in Gloucester in 1884, Colby College Museum of Art) and Drawing, Red Light (1883, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum), exemplifies the artist’s interest in inserting drama and emotion into these scenes of rescue. William Howe Downes, Homer’s first biographer, explains that the artist “never paints a scene as he sees it, not even as he feels it personally, but only as he finds it to be intrinsically.”[iii] The accident portrayed in Untitled may have been an amalgamation of various incidents that Homer witnessed throughout his time in Cullercoats, Atlantic City, Gloucester, and Prouts Neck – or read about in newspapers – rather than a specific occurrence. Often, Homer’s works were “imagined from stories he heard, rather than saw with his own eyes.”[iv] This element of imagination allowed Homer to heighten the stakes of his scenes, drawing the viewer into the action as a witness and highlighting the precarity of the lives of the fishermen.
While Homer spent time with multiple fishing crews of the North Sea, Atlantic City, and New England, this drawing is most likely set off the coast of Maine, a fitting work for the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. The rocky outcropping to the right of the image is either indicative of a jetty or the cliff-like shoreline of a New England beach; the Atlantic City jetties were not constructed until the early twentieth century, well after Homer’s time in the region. Further, the drawing is not materially consistent with the charcoal and white chalk images produced throughout Homer’s time in Gloucester in 1884, yet bears a significant resemblance to the Cooper Hewitt’s graphite sketches titled Drawing, Red Light, dated ca. 1883.
In Untitled, Homer depicts groups of fishermen on a beach, striding toward rescue boats near the shore. Footprints zigzag through the sand, leading to the small group of rescuers in the foreground. The palimpsestic figure on the right is illustrative of Homer’s tendency to rework his scenes; throughout the drawing, erased lines and lightly drawn figures provide insight into Homer’s creative process. On the left edge of the drawing, a masted ship sits in distress, stranded in the distant sea and awaiting the lifesaving teams. Just below the ship stands another cluster of fishermen, their figures blurring into one gray mass. Both groups wear Sou’wester hats and tall boots – the uniform standard to the fishermen and lifesaving crews of this time – and appear to be launching a rescue mission for the ship.
Homer’s study shows the dynamism of such a scene as the sketched lines and eraser marks create an overwhelming sense of movement in the small drawing. It is difficult to discern precisely where the shore gives way to the water; the waves blend into the rocks, while the cloudy sky presses into the horizon line. The outlines of the figures feel impermanent as Homer portrays the men mid-gesture; we can even see the overlapping lines of the cresting waves passing through the bodies of the crew in the foreground. Untitled offers a window into Homer’s life near the end of the nineteenth century, exemplifying his newfound interest in the maritime lifesaving efforts and improvements in the early 1880s, coinciding with his time in Cullercoats, New Jersey, and of course, Maine. Predating his oil paintings of similar motifs – The Life Line (1884), The Distress Signal (1890-1896) – this drawing provides valuable insight into the artistic process of the quintessential New England artist.
Winslow Homer, Untitled, ca. 1890s, graphite on paper, 13.5 in x 8.31 in. Gift of Helen and Michael Horn. 2022.1.1.
Kristen is a curatorial research intern at OMAA and a second-year MA student in art history at Tufts University. Her main research interests include late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art of Europe and the Americas, with an emphasis on French Impressionism, Surrealism, and Mexican muralism. In addition to her internship at OMAA, Kristen serves as the volunteer exhibition coordinator at the nonprofit organization Arts at the Armory in Somerville, MA.
[i] Kathleen Foster, Shipwreck! Winslow Homer and the Life Line (Yale University Press, 2012), 25, 46.
[ii] Foster, Shipwreck!, 63.
[iii] William R. Cross, Winslow Homer: American Passage (Macmillan Publishers, 2022), 374.
[iv] Cross, Winslow Homer, 374.
