Seesaw - Gloucester, Massachusetts
published 1874
Medium
wood engraving
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Addie Burr Clark
Accession Number
1946.9.89
Art Historical Context
"Seesaw - Gloucester, Massachusetts" is a charming wood engraving published in 1874, created after the designs of Winslow Homer, one of America's foremost realist artists. Homer, renowned for his vivid depictions of everyday American life, coastal scenes, and the sea, captured the simple joys of childhood in this playful image. Set in the bustling fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts—a place Homer frequented for inspiration—the print likely shows children gleefully balancing on a seesaw, evoking a sense of carefree leisure amid the town's rugged maritime backdrop. Wood engraving, the med...
About the Artist
after Winslow Homer
"After Winslow Homer" is the conventional attribution in art historical catalogs for a body of mid- to late-19th-century wood engravings that reproduce the illustrations drawn by the eminent American realist painter Winslow Homer (1836–1910) for popular periodicals, most notably Harper's Weekly. Beginning in 1857, shortly after Harper's Weekly launched in New York, Homer contributed hundreds of sk...