Artwork Page for A Clam-Bake

Details / Information for A Clam-Bake

A Clam-Bake

1873

Winslow Homer

(American, 1836–1910)
Culture
America
Medium
watercolor, gouache, and graphite
Measurements
Sheet: 19.7 x 34.6 cm (7 3/4 x 13 5/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Homer H. Johnson 1945.229
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

During the first part of his career, Winslow Homer supported himself as an illustrator, but in the early 1870s he found that he could make a good living through the sale of his watercolors. His early watercolors, such as this one of boys on a beach at Gloucester, Massachusetts, show a tentative use of the technique and often have the effect of colored line drawings. Homer later combined the composition of this watercolor with other sketches to produce the illustration A Clam-Bake, which appeared in Harper's Weekly on August 23, 1873.
A horizontally oriented watercolor and gouache drawing depicts a pebbly shoreline where several children in rimmed hats crouch and sit. In the center-left, a figure in a white shirt leans against a massive gray boulder, while a splash of red marks a standing figure further left. The smooth blue sea meets a pale sky where tiny white dashes of sails line the horizon. Sandy tones and gray stones ground the airy scene.

A Clam-Bake

1873

Winslow Homer

(American, 1836–1910)
America

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