About this artwork
Winslow Homer painted The Gulf Stream in 1899 and reworked it by 1906, at his studio at Prouts Neck, Maine. He was 63 years old and had been painting the sea for nearly two decades, since his move from New York to the Maine coast in 1883. The Gulf Stream is the culmination of his career as a marine painter, and it is one of the most discussed paintings in American art.
A Black man lies on the deck of a small, damaged boat in the middle of the ocean. The boat has lost its mast and rudder. Sharks circle in the water around it, their fins cutting the surface. A waterspout twists in the distance at the right, and a ship sails on the horizon at the left, too far away to help. The man is propped on his elbow, looking back over his shoulder toward the boat's stern. His expression is difficult to read: he is not panicking, but he is not at peace.
Homer based the painting on his travels to the Caribbean. He visited the Bahamas in 1884 and again in 1898, where he made watercolors of the local fishing boats and the tropical water. The Gulf Stream itself is a current that carries warm water from the Caribbean up the East Coast of the United States and across the Atlantic to Europe. Homer's title connects the man in the boat to a geography that links the Caribbean, the United States, and Africa through the history of the Atlantic slave trade.
The painting has been read in many ways since it was first exhibited in 1900. Some critics saw it as a story of survival and endurance. Others saw it as a commentary on the condition of Black Americans after Reconstruction, abandoned by a country that had promised them freedom. Homer himself resisted interpretation. When a curator asked him about the painting's meaning, he replied: 'I regret very much that I have painted a picture that requires any description. The subject of this picture is composed of its own self.'
Oil on canvas, 71 by 124 centimeters. Homer painted the water in deep blues and greens, building the waves in thick, directional strokes. The sharks are painted in gray-green, their bodies barely visible below the surface. The man's skin is painted in warm browns, his red shirt torn and faded. The boat is painted in warm browns and grays, with the broken mast visible at the stern. The surface has the direct, physical quality of Homer's late work, where the paint is applied with the confidence of a man who has been looking at the sea for 20 years.
The horizontal format and deep blues make this print work well in a living room, office, or any room with white walls. The blues and greens pair with natural wood, white walls, and blue-and-white ceramics. The 18x24 size is the best choice, as the composition needs width to read. The painting has a powerful, unresolved quality that rewards long looking.
The painting entered the Met's collection in 1906, purchased with the Wolfe Fund. It is one of the most important American paintings in the museum's collection.
This is a public domain artwork (CC0), scanned from the original at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.
