Northeaster. Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836-1910 Prouts Neck, Maine). Dimensions: 34 1/2 x 50 in. (87.6 x 127 cm). Date: 1895; reworked by 1901.
On the Maine coast, a "nor'easter" is a storm of exceptional violence and duration. When Homer first showed this canvas in 1895, it included two men in foul-weather gear crouching on the rocks below a smaller column of spray. Even though the painting was well received and purchased by a leading collector of American art--George Hearn, who later donated it to the Metropolitan Museum--Homer reworked it to powerful effect.