Husking the Corn in New England, from Harper's Weekly, November 13, 1858
1858
Medium
Graphic Arts-Print
Classification
Graphic Arts-Print
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Ray Austrian Collection, gift of Beatrice L. Austrian, Caryl A. Austrian and James A. Austrian
Accession Number
1996.63.27
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into a lively snapshot of 19th-century America with Winslow Homer's *Husking the Corn in England*, a wood engraving published in *Harper's Weekly on November 13,1858. This graphic arts print captures a bustling corn-husking bee—a traditional New England harvest gathering—inside a rustic barn. Groups of men and women work side by side, husking corn from the cob amid laughter and camaraderie, evoking the communal spirit of pre-Civil War farm life. Homer, then a young illustrator for the popular magazine, masterfully used the wood engraving technique to convey motion and realism in black-an...
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...