Homer lived in Boston until his early twenties. He was mostly self-taught. His mother, a gifted watercolorist, got him started. After a short apprenticeship with a commercial lithographer, he began his career in illustration. For the next twenty years, he made his living working for magazines like Harper’s Weekly. He subsequently picked up a paint brush. His love was oils, but his watercolors were cheaper, they sold well, and brought him greater recognition.
He loved the ocean, and in the 1880s, he moved to Prouts Neck on the coast of Maine. It was here that he began to paint his water scenes. He not only painted the sea itself, but pitted "man against the elements" to show how powerful the water could be. He later stopped painting human figures all together and just focused on the sea. Today, Homer is known as the foremost American marine painter.
This painting was inspired by a trip to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Canada. There, aboard fishing vessels, he watched men, cast adrift on the open sea, take their chance with the waves and weather. To see the original painting: https://bit.ly/4hSO2DK