Early Morning After a Storm at Sea (1900–1903): Art, History and Details

Early Morning After a Storm at Sea (1900–1903) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The powerful Atlantic surf pounding against the desolate coast of Prouts Neck, Maine, provided primary subject matter for the dramatic paintings that Homer created during his final decades. This example, which the artist proclaimed as "the best picture of the sea that I have painted," was initially conceived as a watercolor. Undertaking the composition in oil after a lapse of nearly two decades, Homer patiently waited for the appropriate atmospheric conditions, executing the work in four different sessions spread over two years.

Object facts

• Title: Early Morning After a Storm at Sea
• Date: 1900–1903
• Creator attribution: Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910)
• Culture: America, late 19th-early 20th Century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 111 x 160 x 12 cm (43 11/16 x 63 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 76.8 x 127 cm (30 1/4 x 50 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1924.195

A detail from the museum

Winslow Homer's studio in Prouts Neck, Maine, is a National Historic Landmark.

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• Denenberg, Thomas Andrew, and Winslow Homer. Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine. 2012.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of an Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 Until Today at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: [Printed by the Artcraft Printing Co.], 1937.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of the Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition : June Twenty-Sixth to October Fourth 1936. [Cleveland, Ohio]: [Cleveland Museum of Art], 1936.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.