The Wreck on the "Atlantic"--Cast up by the Sea, from Harper's Weekly, April 26, 1873
1873
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
1996.63.82
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1873, the steamship SS *Atlantic* met tragedy off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, when it struck rocks during a fierce storm, resulting in over 500 deaths—one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in the Atlantic Ocean. Winslow Homer's poignant wood engraving, *The Wreck on the "Atlantic"--Cast up by the Sea*, published in *Harper's Weekly* on April 26, 1873, captures the harrowing aftermath. Bodies of men and women, lifeless and strewn across the rocky shore by relentless waves, evoke the raw human cost of the catastrophe, blending stark realism with emotional urgency. Homer, a ...
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...