Winslow Homer's drawings in 'black-and-white,' c. 1875-1885. (Volumes I and II)

From 1875 until 1885, Winslow Homer frequently exhibited and sold drawings in "black-and-white," works executed in friable and liquid media whose common attribute was their monochrome appearance. His interest in such drawings coincided with the growing popularity of exhibiting similar graphic art, including illustrations, etchings and engravings, and paintings en grisaille.;Prior to the Civil War, the perceived status of drawings as works that did not embody a fully developed conceptual statement generally precluded their inclusion in exhibitions. Yet beginning in the late 1860s and the early 1870s, Homer and his colleagues became increasingly interested in drawing media and watercolor as a means to explore issues relating to artistic process and to investigate their own personal and expressive sensibilities. Critics and collectors as well began looking at drawings in new ways, appreciating them as works that revealed an artist's unique pictorial sensibility.;Homer's drawings in black-and-white reveal the artist to be responding to the aesthetic, ideological, and market forces of the artistic community of New York and Boston during the 1870s and 1880s. From 1875 until 1880, Homer adopted for his drawings sophisticated pictorial devices common among the community of progressive artists working in New York. While abroad in England from March 1881 until November 1882, he continued experimenting with drawing media and with drawing typologies that highlighted the aesthetics of the sketch format. Upon his return to New York and after his move to Prout's Neck, Maine, he continued to make these independent drawings and he developed alternative markets for them, where they appeared in exhibitions until 1885. These latter drawings were pivotal for the development of his mature oil paintings of Prout's Neck executed from the 1890s until his death in 1910. As a group, Homer's drawings in black-and-white reveal the artist to be at once a participant of mainstream artistic activity, as well as an innovative force within it.