Winslow Homer Watercolors

The book opens with a chronology and a bibliography. This is followed by a ten page essay which provides a chronological record of Homer's development and his work. The remainder of the book is taken up with the colour plates, each of which is presented on the right hand page with the facing page offering details and comments on the work. These notes are generally objective and informative. The large square format of the book combined with taking the image almost to the edges of the page, allows the images to be reproduced to a good size. However, while there is no problem with the clarity of the images they appear a little weak in colour, and lack the vibrancy one would expect from watercolours. While I have not been fortunate to see the works in the original, reproductions I have seen elsewhere look more convincing. I feel too that the choice of a modern serif font for the text is not the best choice; it certainly has not reproduced well and despite being fairly large is not that easy to read across the wide page. This is a well produced book which offers thirty two full colour plates covering the range of the artist's watercolour output.

This is an excellect book for anyone who is interested in painting, watercoler and/or Winslow Homer. It has a representative sample of Homers' work with large color plates, along with a discussion of each painting which places it in the context of Homers' life and career at the time the work was created.