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Lot Essay
When Winslow Homer painted A Tropical Breeze, Nassau around 1889-90, the artist had been using the medium of watercolor for nearly two decades. While in his watercolors from the mid-1870s Homer used expressive washes sparingly, only in the 1880s and 1890s would he begin to exploit the inherent characteristics of watercolor medium. In works such as A Tropical Breeze, Nassau, Homer explores the aqueous nature of the medium, filling the sky with rich washes of blue and gray. In the wall of cut stone in the right foreground layers of charcoal gray and ochre intermingle. And the distant horizon includes the brilliant aquamarine pigments for which Homer's watercolors are so celebrated.
Homer painted A Tropical Breeze, Nassau on his second visit to Nassau, the Bahamas, which lasted from December 1889 into February 1890. He had first traveled there in December 1884, when Nassau was becoming a popular tourist location. The Century Magazine, for whom Homer had worked in the past, commissioned the artist to illustrate an article on the city. Traveling with his father, Homer stayed at the elegant Royal Victoria Hotel, the largest building on the island whose graceful veranda commanded a breathtaking view of the city and distant sea. Over the course of his visits to this relaxed and inspiring setting, Homer created some of his most luminous and memorable watercolors, including A Tropical Breeze, Nassau.
The tropical environment had a profound impact on Homer's art. H. Cooper writes, "Formally, the Caribbean light had a liberating--and lasting--effect on Homer's watercolor style. The Bahamas sheets are painted with free and gestural strokes in transparent washes often of brilliant colors, leaving large areas of white paper exposed. Their style was undoubtedly affected by the conditions of their creation: painted outdoors, and quickly, before the watery pigment could dry under the hot sun. With fewer spongings, scrapings, and lift-outs, they have a direct, seemingly unpremeditated execution. Homer was suddenly able to say things with ease that had before been communicated only with effort." (Winslow Homer Watercolors, Washington, DC, 1986, p. 134)
This watercolor will be included in the forthcoming Spanierman Gallery/CUNY/Goodrich/Whitney catalogue raisonné of the works of Winslow Homer.
Homer painted A Tropical Breeze, Nassau on his second visit to Nassau, the Bahamas, which lasted from December 1889 into February 1890. He had first traveled there in December 1884, when Nassau was becoming a popular tourist location. The Century Magazine, for whom Homer had worked in the past, commissioned the artist to illustrate an article on the city. Traveling with his father, Homer stayed at the elegant Royal Victoria Hotel, the largest building on the island whose graceful veranda commanded a breathtaking view of the city and distant sea. Over the course of his visits to this relaxed and inspiring setting, Homer created some of his most luminous and memorable watercolors, including A Tropical Breeze, Nassau.
The tropical environment had a profound impact on Homer's art. H. Cooper writes, "Formally, the Caribbean light had a liberating--and lasting--effect on Homer's watercolor style. The Bahamas sheets are painted with free and gestural strokes in transparent washes often of brilliant colors, leaving large areas of white paper exposed. Their style was undoubtedly affected by the conditions of their creation: painted outdoors, and quickly, before the watery pigment could dry under the hot sun. With fewer spongings, scrapings, and lift-outs, they have a direct, seemingly unpremeditated execution. Homer was suddenly able to say things with ease that had before been communicated only with effort." (Winslow Homer Watercolors, Washington, DC, 1986, p. 134)
This watercolor will be included in the forthcoming Spanierman Gallery/CUNY/Goodrich/Whitney catalogue raisonné of the works of Winslow Homer.