While living in a tiny fishing village in England in 1881-82, the American artist Winslow Homer was profoundly moved by the sight of a shipwreck that would focus his imagination on the power and peril of the sea. His art took on a new seriousness and drama, demonstrated in a major painting made soon after his return to the United States: The Life Line (1884),one of his greatest popular and critical successes. A masterpiece owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art (USA) for almost 90 years, The Life Line is the centerpiece of this exhibition about the making and meaning of an iconic American image of rescue at sea.
Celebrating modern heroism and the thrill of unexpected intimacy between strangers thrown together by disaster, Shipwreck! Winslow Homer and “The Life Line” contains 33 works by or after Homer. These works are complemented by a range of precedents in the shipwreck and rescue genre including 35 paintings, watercolors, etchings, engravings, sketches and ceramics ranging in date from the mid-17th to the early 20th centuries. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is the only venue for this important exhibition, which includes fragile and rarely seen watercolors, prints, and drawings.
Dates: from September 22 to December 16.
Location: Philadelphia Museum of Art. Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Filadelfia, PA 19130. USA:
Opening hours: from Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm. Fridays from 10am to 8.45pm.