Timeline
The life and career of Winslow Homer, 1836–1910
Born February 24 in Boston, Massachusetts, the second of three sons of Charles Savage Homer and Henrietta Maria Benson Homer
Apprenticed at nineteen to the Boston commercial lithographer J. H. Bufford
Sets up as a freelance illustrator, contributing to Ballou's Pictorial and Harper's Weekly; declines a staff post at Harper's
Moves to New York; attends classes at the National Academy of Design and studies briefly with Frederick Rondel
Sent to the Civil War front by Harper's Weekly; draws his first war sketches in McClellan's camp on the Potomac in October
Elected a full Academician of the National Academy of Design; paints The Veteran in a New Field
Exhibits Prisoners from the Front at the National Academy of Design; sails for France late in the year
Spends about a year in France; Prisoners from the Front is shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris
Paints Snap the Whip
Summer in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he begins painting in watercolour regularly
Gives up commercial illustration to live from his paintings and watercolours
Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) is shown at the National Academy of Design and the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
Spends a productive season at Houghton Farm as the guest of the industrialist Lawson Valentine
Settles at Cullercoats, near Tynemouth on England's North Sea coast, painting the local fisherwomen
Returns to the United States in November and exhibits his English watercolours in New York
Moves to Prouts Neck in Scarborough, Maine, his home and studio for the rest of his life
Winter journey to Florida, Cuba and the Bahamas (1884-85), the first of his Caribbean trips
Paints Eight Bells; publishes an etching of the subject the following year
Paints The Fox Hunt, his largest canvas, which the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts buys immediately
Paints Northeaster and Cannon Rock at Prouts Neck; fishing trip to Lake St. John, Quebec
After a winter in Nassau (December 1898 - February 1899), paints The Gulf Stream
The Metropolitan Museum of Art buys The Gulf Stream after the National Academy of Design jury petitions it to do so
Paints Right and Left
Dies September 29 in his Prouts Neck studio, aged 74; buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts