Homer, Winslow

Collection of 21 autograph letters signed ("Winslow Homer"), 50 pages (ca. 8 x 4  7/8  in.; 203 x 124 mm), mostly Scarboro, Prout's Neck, Maine, 30 March–31 December 1900, to M. Knoedler & Co., New York, many receipted with small inked stamp; 30 March letter chipped and frayed at edges, others in generally good condition.

A fine collection of letters by Winslow Homer, including four ink sketches, to his dealer, M. Knoedler.  These letters cover the artist's dealings during the year 1900 with his New York gallery, his Chicago agent, private collectors, and several institutions where his work was then exhibited, including the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh and the Union League Club and the Century Association in New York.

In his letter of 30 May, Homer mentions his great painting "Lost on the Grand Banks" (1885) and its owner J. A. Spoor: "This article that I send herewith is a great lie in every way that I know anything about — I write to know if this J. A. Spoor is the purchaser of my painting 'Lost on the Grand Banks', so why since he considers it so well worth blowing about — why does he not pay for it?"  "Lost on the Grand Banks" remained in Spoor's family till 1996 when it was sold to another collector for what was then the record price for an American painting.  It remains the last great Homer seascape in private hands.

Several of the letters deal with arrangements for sending pictures to private clubs in New York for group exhibitions.  On 1 October Homer instructs Knoedler to send two watercolors to the Century Club in time for its monthly meeting.  He gives precise instructions and at the bottom of the page—within an ink border—writes "Dust off the glass".

Writing of one of his most celebrated works (painted the previous year and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art), Homer says, "I set $4000 — price on the 'Gulf Stream' inside the Carnegie Institute — Of course I will give you with pleasure a commission to sell if you can outside of that Exhibition — I will give you 20 per cent to sell it to any of your customers — at the above mentioned price."

Homer allows himself only a single remark on politics in this correspondence, alluding on 22 October to the 1900 Presidential election, "The betting appears so strong in favor of McKinley that I will order another frame — size (canvas) 39 1/4 x 39 1/4 inches."  This is followed by a diagram of the canvas.  When a client in Chicago refuses a canvas, claiming it is moth-eaten, the artist instructs his dealer, "Please look & see if a single thread of canvas is broken & report to me — This mares nest they have found is simply the canvas is not covered in one or two spots.  It can be fixed in five minutes."  (The telegram from O'Brien & Son, Chicago, is included.)

Explaining the price he is asking for a picture, Homer writes on 1 December, "I send you ... the painting (Fog) & the ... frame.  I hope you will pardon me if I explain to you why I put this price of $2000 inclusive of frame on this picture — It has taken me a long time & much careful study.  Quite different from posing a successful lawyer in one studio light & rattling him off in a week's time to the tune of $3000.  If you want more sentiment put into this picture I can with one or two touches — in five minutes time — give it the stomach ache that will suit any customer."  Two days later, he writes, "The picture now going forward is called 'Breaking the Bar' — Cannon Rock.  It was painted in 1895 & has been hanging in my studio untouched.  I did not put it out or change it in any way — as the breaking on the bar part of it looked so broken & so like decanters & crockery & at the same time looked so fine at a proper distance."

At the end of the year, Homer was completing a painting to be included, along with another work, in a loan exhibition at the Union League Club in January 1901.  On 23 December, he finished the great "West Point, Prout's Neck."  In his letter of 29 December, he makes a sketch of the painting in its frame (approx. 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.) and writes, "The large picture you have already had in your show window on the opposite corner of 5th Ave five years ago.  I have painted over since & it is better."  The other painting sent to the ULC was another acclaimed seascape, "Eastern Point," completed 14 October 1900.  Both are now in the collection of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

An important collection of revealing letters documenting a year in the working life of one of America's greatest artists.  Homer's letters to M. Knoedler for the years 1901–08 were sold in these rooms, 16 June 2005, lot 77.