Signature
Winslow Homer, Signature in Palette (undated) pen and brown ink on wove paper, National Gallery of Art. Homer’s graceful signature here has some decorative touches: a more elaborate W and H, for instance, than his signatures on oil paintings or watercolors.
Winslow Homer, A Clam-Bake (1873) gouache, watercolor and graphite on paper, The Cleveland Museum of Art. Homer’s ornate signature and date are in black ink on the lower left of this watercolor. Here, Homer wrote his signature with a bit more of a slant than in other examples.
Winslow Homer, Dressing for the Carnival (1877) oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Homer’s signature is at the lower right of this canvas. N.A. stands for National Academy of Art.
Winslow Homer, High Cliff, Coast of Maine (1894) oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Homer’s signature is at the bottom right of this canvas, in red. Here, the number 1 in 1894 has apparently worn off.
Winslow Homer, The Dinner Horn (Blowing the Horn at Seaside) (1870) oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art. Homer’s signature is mostly printed here, with a flourish at the end of his last name. Unlike the previous Homer signature examples, this signature is on the lower left of the canvas, rather than the lower right.
Winslow Homer, Inside the Bar (1883) watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper, Metropolitan Museum of Art. This nearly illegible signature is on the lower right of the paper. In this case. Homer wrote the date of the watercolor as “’83.”
Winslow Homer, Boys in a Dory (1880) watercolor and graphite on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum. The signature on Boys in a Dory is on the lower right of the watercolor. Homer only printed his last name, in this example. Yet he once again dated the watercolor.
We perform forensic examinations of Winslow Homer’s signature and Winslow Homer’s handwriting.