Maine Coast

Winslow Homer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1895, on the eve of his fifty-ninth birthday, Homer wrote to his brother Charles: "The life that I have chosen gives me my full hours of enjoyment for the balance of my life. The sun will not rise, or set, without my notice, and thanks." During his final decades, the artist honed the essential themes of his art, steadily and insistently focusing on nature and mortality. His powers of observation were bound to his sense of impermanence. At Prouts Neck, he channeled his commitment to realism into representations of the rugged coast and churning ocean across the seasons, in varying conditions and at different times of day. In Homer’s depictions of fierce weather in particular, the expressive quality of his brushwork conveys the eternity and majesty of the ocean.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art