American Storyteller

An upcoming exhibition at the Speed Art Museum explores Winslow Homer's illustrative wood engravings

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Opens August 2024

Speed Art Museum

2035 S. Third Street Louisville, KY 40208 t: [phone] www.speedmuseum.org

Many know Winslow Homer for his dramatic marine paintings capturing sailors and fisherman on stormy waters or rocky coastlines pummeled by crashing waves. They also might know the 19th-century painter for his bucolic landscapes. Regarded as one of the most prominent and influential artists of the 19th century, Homer was also known for his illustrative work, particularly as a freelance commercial illustrator designing wood engravings on paper.

"The wood engravings Homer created for popular pictorial magazines [like] Harper's Weekly, Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion and Appleton's Journal were the works that first brought him national attention and helped established his reputation as an artist and illustrator," says Kim Spence, the senior director of collections and curator of works on paper at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Beginning this August, the museum is hosting an exhibition devoted to Homer's illustrative wood engravings titled Winslow Homer: American Storyteller. The show is curated by Spence.