NEWS!

June Special Program

WINSLOW HOMER presented by Laura Nicolls

Join us on June 21, 2025, at 10:30 a.m., at the Orange County Society headquarters in Arden, NY. (Arden is a hamlet slightly south of Harriman and north of Southfields, in the Town of Tuxedo.) Laura Nicolls will give a special presentation on WINSLOW HOMER, the preeminent 19th/early 20th century artist. Homer began his career as a commercial artist who created timely Civil War Illustrations for Harper's Weekly. Later Homer focused on painting both in oil and watercolor, of women at leisure, Adirondack sporting events and, most notably, children at play.

During the 1870s, Homer was an occasional visitor to Houghton Farm, the summer residence of Lawson Valentine, in Mountainville. Valentine, a longtime family friend and patron, was a prosperous manufacturer of varnish and paint and a business partner of Homer's older brother Charles. An extended stay during the summer of 1878 allowed Winslow Homer to produce numerous drawings and approximately thirty watercolor paintings of wholesome children and shepherdesses in the nearby meadows and orchards in Woodbury and Cornwall.

As America approached its Centennial, these images were viewed as symbols of American freedom and the moral virtue of rural life. Artistically, Homer developed freedom and clarity in his watercolor technique. In the decades after his Houghton Farm summer, Homer began to focus on the power of the sea. There is no record that Homer ever returned to Houghton Farm.

Laura Nicolls has been an Art Educator for fifty years. Since retiring from teaching in 2013, she has been delivering art and history related presentations at the Alice Desmond Center for Community Enrichment, as well as at various local libraries and venues.