Winslow Homer Quotes

Only once in the last thirty years have I made a duplicate, and that was a watercolor from my oil picture now owned by the Layton Art Gallery, Milwaukee, called 'Hark! the Lark.'

- Winslow Homer

With the duckets that I now have safe, I think I will retire at 66 years of age, praise God, in good health.

- Winslow Homer

Mr. C. Klackner has for sale four etchings etched by myself, at the expense of two years' time & hard work - 'The Life Line,' 'Peril on the Sea,' 'Eight Bells,' 'Mending Tears,' - all of which are very good and should have been put forward long ago, but C. Klackner is waiting for me to die, is my idea of the matter.

- Winslow Homer

I decide to go direct to Key West... I know the place quite well, and it's near the points in Florida that I wish to visit. I have an idea at present of doing some work but do not know how long that will last.

- Winslow Homer

It is certainly a most tremendous and unprecedented honor and distinction that I have received from Pittsburgh. Let us hope that it is not too late in my case to be of value to American art in something that I may yet possibly do from this encouragement.

- Winslow Homer

The slavery at Bufford's was too fresh in my recollection to let me care to bind myself again. From the time that I took my nose off that lithographic stone, I have had no master, and never shall have any.

- Winslow Homer

I prefer every time a picture composed and painted outdoors.

- Winslow Homer

Talent! There's no such thing as talent. What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous hard work in the right way.

- Winslow Homer

Do not think that I have stopped painting, for at any moment, I am liable to paint a good picture.

- Winslow Homer

I wouldn't go across the street to see a Bouguereau. His pictures look false; he does not get the truth of what he wishes to represent. His light is not outdoor light; his works are waxy and artificial. They are extremely near being frauds.

- Winslow Homer

The sun will not rise or set without my notice, and thanks.

- Winslow Homer

The life that I have chosen gives me my full hours of enjoyment for the balance of my life: the sun will not rise, or set, without my notice and thanks.

- Winslow Homer

This making studies and then taking them home to use them is only half right. You get composition, but you lose freshness; you miss the subtle and, to the artist, the finer characteristics of the scene itself.

- Winslow Homer

Anything written or printed under a print or picture takes the attention from it and, if it is very black or white in any marked degree, will utterly destroy its beauty.

- Winslow Homer

When will you learn that the time to buy a thing is when you find what you want? If you go back the next year and try to get more, they will try to sell you something else.

- Winslow Homer

A man is known by his works. That I have heard at many a funeral.

- Winslow Homer

I do not care to put out any ideas for pictures. They are too valuable and can be appropriated by any art student, defrauding me out of a possible picture.

- Winslow Homer

I don't want a lot of people nosing round my studio and bothering me. I don't want to see them at all. Let the dealers have all that bother.

- Winslow Homer

Every condition must be favorable, or I do not work and will not.

- Winslow Homer

You can't get along without a knowledge of the principles and rules governing the influence of one color upon another. A mechanic might as well try to get along without tools.

- Winslow Homer

You will see - in the future, I will live by my watercolors.

- Winslow Homer

If a man wants to be an artist, he must never look at pictures.

- Winslow Homer