Winslow Homer is considered one of the greatest American artists of the 19th century and a paramount figure in American art. He began his career as a commercial printmaker, soon expanding his mastery to oil paint as well as watercolor. Homer enjoyed solitude and utilized the privacy and isolation to paint the great themes of his career including the struggles of people and the timelessness of nature. His late paintings of seascapes were admired most by Homer’s contemporaries.