Adirondacks Guide
1892
Medium
Transparent watercolor with touches of opaque watercolor, rewetting, blotting and scraping, over traces of graphite, on thick, moderately textured, ivory wove paper (top edge trimmed)
Dimensions
32.9 × 54.5 cm (13 × 21 1/2 in.)
Classification
watercolor
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
16772
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Adirondacks Guide is a sensitive portrait of the guide Rufus Wallace, shown returning from duck hunting in his canoe. Although the background of lake and sky are only loosely suggested, the details of the old man’s face, beard, and still-strong body are carefully rendered with brushstrokes of diluted color. His gaze, forward and slightly elevated, is evocative; one senses that the old man is at once alert to nature and lost in his own contemplations.
About the Artist
Winslow Homer · 1836–1910
Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was one of America's greatest painters and a preeminent figure in 19th-century American art. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career as a commercial illustrator and Civil War correspondent for Harper's Weekly before becoming renowned for his powerful marine subjects and landscape paintings. His mastery of both oil and watercolor, combined with his uncompromising reali...