I would say that the exhibit is really about the man and not the watercolors per se. It is unlike the Brooklyn Museum’s Sargent exhibit which was about watercolor technique as Sargent practiced it).
As well as very minor graphic work, often reproductions of some sort.
There was introduced the interesting idea that Homer painting some paintings, mostly oils, for himself and some for the market. They segregated the two types. Of course, the ones for himself were much better than the ones for the market.
Sledding, a painting Homer is thought to have painted for himself.
There were several study drawings for the above picture which is quite interesting since Homer’s finished drawing have a different quality. He seems to be working out the planes and forms of the image in this sketch.
There is a section of the Clarke website here that allows you to search the images in the show. It is a “nested” series of images, meaning you click on the first image and it opens to a page of other images. Everything seems to be there, so I am not going to post all the watercolor images.
Most students of Homer’s watercolors believe there was a radical shift late in life (sometime after the late 1880) when he did his Adirondack paintings and his Bahama paintings as a result of the influence of Japanese woodcuts which were indirectly transmitted to him via John LaFarge and work in stained glass. Unfortunately Clark bought a lot of very early work.
Below is a list of the watercolors in the exhibit. You might want to check the dates to focus on the late work.
One thing I noticed was how complex his skies are and how dark and formless his background trees are in the later paintings.
Thanks! Love this blog. Always interesting and inspirational.