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Two Guides

Winslow Homer

American, 1836–1910

Two Guides

1877

The men in this painting were well-known wilderness guides in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, a region the artist visited regularly. Their axes and the felled trees nearby suggest they are clearing trails for hikers and hunters. Homer’s richly colored scene alludes not only to the inevitable cycles of life—from summer to autumn and sapling to stump––but also the transfer of experience from elder to youth.

Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 24 1/4 x 38 1/4 in. (61.6 x 97.2 cm) Frame: 34 7/8 x 48 11/16 x 3 1/4 in. (88.6 x 123.7 x 8.3 cm)
Object Number 1955.3
Acquisition Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status On View

Image Caption

Winslow Homer, Two Guides, 1877, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.3

Select Bibliography

National Academy of Design. 53rd Annual Exhibition. Exhibition catalogue. New York: National Academy of Design, 1878. Union League Club. Pictures by American Figure Painters and Persian and Indian Works of Art. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Union League Club, 1890. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Catalogue of the Collection of Thomas B. Clarke. Exhibition catalogue. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1891. National Adademy of Design. Loan Exhibition: New YorkColumbian Celebration. Exhibition catalogue. New York: National Academy of Design, 1892. Handy, M. P. ed. World's Columbian Exposition Official Catalogue: Part K, Department K: Fine Arts. Exhibition catalogue. Chicago: W. B. Conkey, 1893. Union League Club. The Paintings of Two AmericansGeorge Inness and Winslow Homer. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Union League Club, 1898. Carnegie Institute. Catalogue of the Twelfth Annual Exhibition. Exhibition catalogue. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute, 1908. Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of the Inaugural Exhibition. Exhibition catalogue. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1916. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four: First Two Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Sixteen: Winslow Homer. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1961. Goodrich, Lloyd. Art of the United States, 1670-1960. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1966. Goodrich, Lloyd. Winslow Homer. Exhibition catalogue. New York?, 1973. Murphy, Alexandra. Winslow Homer in the Clark Collection. Exhibition catalogue. With contributions by Rafael Fernandez and Jennifer Gordon. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1986. Carr, Carolyn Kinder, Robert Rydell, et al. Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair. Exhibition catalogue. Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery, 1993. Cikovsky, Nicolai, Charles Moffett, and Franklin Kelly. Winslow Homer. Exhibition catalogue. Washington, DC: The National Gallery of Art, 1995. Johns, Elizabeth, Andrew Sayers, and Elizabeth Mankin. New Worlds from Old: 19th Century Australian & American Landscapes. Exhibition catalogue. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia; Hartford, CT: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1998. New York Sun. "The National Academy of Design, II." April 14, 1878. Union League Club. Catalogue of Pictures by American Figure Painters and Perian and Indian Works of Art. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Union League Club, 1890. "The Monthly Exhibition of the Union League Club." The Studio 5 (February 22, 1890). "Art Notes." The Art Interchange 24 (March 1, 1890). Montezuma. "My Note Book." The Art Amateur 22, no, 6 (May 1890). "Some Living American Painters: Critical Conversations by Howe and Torrey, Winslow Homer, N.A.". Art Interchange 32 (May 1894). Hitchcock, Ripley. The Art of the World, Illustrated in Paintings, Statuary, and Architecture of the World's Columbian Exposition. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1894. New York Daily Tribune. "Winslow Homer." May 26, 1895. New York Times. "Art at the Union League." March 11, 1898: 67 New York Sun. "Art Notes: Exhibition of Works by George Inness and Winslow Homer at the Union League Club." March 11, 1898. New York Commercial Advertiser. "The Art World: The Paintings of Two Americans, Notes." March 11, 1898. "The Fine Arts: Paintings by Inness and Homer." The Critic (March 19, 1898). Swift, Samuel. "Winslow Homer." The Mail and Express (New York). March 19, 1898, Saturday supplement. "The Collector: Exhibitions." The Art Amateur 38, no. 5 (April 1898). Knauff, Christopher W. "Certain Exemplars of Art in AmericaIV. Elliott Dangerfield and Winslow Homer." The Churchman 78 (July 12, 1898). "Winslow Homer." The Art Amateur 39, no. 6 (November 1898). New York Sun. "Greatest Picture Sale." February 18, 1899. Isham, Samuel. The History of American Painting. New York: Macmillan Co., 1905. "Correspondence: Shurtleff Recalls Homer." Art News 9 (October 29, 1910). Downes, William Howe. The Life and Works of Winslow Homer. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911. Cox, Kenyon. Winslow Homer. New York: Privately printed. 1914. Pousette-Dart, Nathaniel. Winslow Homer. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1923. Bolton, Theodore. "The Art of Winslow Homer: An Estimate in 1932" Fine Arts 18 (February 1932). Downes, William Howe. "American Painters of Mountains." American Magazine of Art 25 (October 1932). Johnson, Allen and Dumas Malone, eds. Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932. Prout's Neck Association. Century Loan Exhibition as a Memorial to Winslow Homer by the Prout's Neck Association. Exhibition catalogue. Prout's Neck, ME: Prout's Neck Association, 1936. Goodrich, Lloyd. Winslow Homer. New York: Published for The Whitney Museum of American Art by Macmillan Co., 1944. Comstock, Helen. "The Connoisseur in America." Connoisseur vol. 136. (Dec. 1955). Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four & Exhibit Seven, Supplement: West Gallery. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1959. Gardner, Albert Ten Eyck. Winslow Homer: A Retrospective Exhibition. Exhibition catalogue. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art; New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1958. Munson, Gorham. "Maine's First Vacationist" Down East (Camden, ME) 5, no. 4 (January 1959). Goodrich, Lloyd. Winslow Homer. New York: George Braziller, 1959. Adirondack Museum. Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks. Exhibition catalogue. Blue Mountain Lake, NY: Adirondack Museum, 1959. Pierson, William H. and Martha Davidson, eds. Arts of the United States: A Pictorial Survey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960. Gardner, Alfred Ten Eyck. Winslow Homer, American Artist: His World and His Work. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1961. Gould, Jean. Winslow Homer: A Portrait. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1962. Fosburgh, James. "Homer in the Adirondacks." Art News Annual Portfolio 7 (Winter 1963). Goodrich, Lloyd. "Winslow Homer in New York State" Art in America 52 (April 1964): 7887. Johnson, Allen, ed. Dictionary of American Biography. Revised edition. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964. Jones, Thomas C. Shaping the Spirit of America: Articles from Harper's and Century Magazines Recalling Events and Times that Helped Determine the Present National Image of the United States of America. Chicago: J. G. Ferguson Publishing Co., 1964. Tatham, David. "Winslow Homer in the Mountains." Appalachia 36 (15 June 1966). Munson, Gorham. "Winslow Homer of Prout's Neck Maine." The Dalhousie Review 47 (Summer 1967). Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Baigell, Matthew. A History of American Painting. Praeger World of Art series. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971. Wilmerding, John. Winslow Homer. American Art & Artists. New York: Praeger, 1972. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Hendricks, Gordon. "The Flood Tide in the Wonslow Homer Market." Art News 72, no. 5 (May 1973): 69–71. Millard, Charles W. "Winslow Homer." The Hudson Review 26 (Winter 1973-74). Weinberg, H. Barbara. "Thomas B. Clarke: Foremost Patron of American Art from 1872 to 1899." American Art Journal 8, no. 1 (May 1976). Quick, Michael. "Homer in Virginia." Los Angeles County Mueum of Art Bulletin 24 (1978). Hendricks, Gordon. The Life and Work of Winslow Homer. New York: Abrams, 1979. Wilmerding, John. "Winslow Homer's Right and Left." Studies in the History of Art 9 (Spring 1980). "Winslow Homer's America." Art and Man (Scholastic Publications) 12, no 4 (February 1982). Feldmann, Edward S. "As Enduring as the Mountains." The Conservationist 38 (NovemberDecember 1983). Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. "Adirondack Park: A Painterly Celebration of the First Wilderness Preserve in History." Wilderness 48 (Summer 1985). Judge, Mary. Winslow Homer. The Q.L.P. Art Series. New York: Crown Publishers, 1986. Pilcher, Edith. Up the Lake Road: The First Hundred Years of the Adirondack Mountain Reserve. Keene Valley: Adirondack Mountain Reserve, 1987. Tatham, David. "The Two Guides: Winslow Homer at Keene Vallery, Adirondacks." American Art Journal 20, no. 2. (1988): 234. Conrads, Margaret C. American Paintings and Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1990. Tatham, David. "The Woods and Water Colorist: Winslow Homer's Wild Northern Scenes." Adirondack Life 23, no. 5 (August 1992): 44-51. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Myers, Julia Rowland. "The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition: Two Centennial Exhibitions Reviewed." American Art Review 5 (1993). May, Stephen. "American Art Triumphant: The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893." American Arts Quarterly (Summer/Autumn 1993): 18-25, 34. Tatham, David. Winslow Homer: Fishing in the North Woods. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1995. Burns, Sarah. Inventing the Modern Artist: Art and Culture in Gilded Age America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Tatham, David. Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996. Kern, Steven, et al. The Clark: Selections from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996. Little, Carl. Winslow Homer: His Art, His Light, His Landscapes. Cobb, CA: First Glance Books, 1997. Kelly, Franklin. "Robert Sterling Clark as a Collector of Homer" The Magazine Antiques 152, no. 4 (October 1997): 546-549. Burns, Sarah. "Rab and the Girls: A Riddle in Paint." In Winslow Homer, An American Genius at the Parthenon: The Move Toward Abstraction, by Susan E. Shockley. Exhibition catalogue. Nashville: The Parthenon, 2000. Plunz, Richard, ed. Two Adirondack Hamlets in History: Keene and Keene Valley. Fleishmanns, NY: Purple Mountain Press; Keene Valley, NY: Keene Valley Library Association, 1999. Horrell, Jeffrey L. Ray Stoddard and the Adirondacks: Changing Perceptions of Wilderness. Ph.D. diss. Syracuse University, 1995.
Wierich, Jochen. The Domestication of History in American Art. Ph.D. dissertation, College of William and Mary, 1998. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Teacher Resource Packet for Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s. Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2001. Conrads, Margaret C. Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s. Exhibition catalogue. Princeton: Princeton University Press in conjunction with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2001. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Looking Guide for Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s. Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2001. Simpson, Marc, and Susannah Maurer. Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2005. Conforti, Michael, et al. The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven: distributed by Yale University Press, 2006. Conner, Holly Pyne, ed. Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase, and Sargent. Exhibition catalogue. Newark, NJ: Newark Museum; New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006. Tatham, David. Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks. 1996. Reprint, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004. Tatham, David. Winslow Homer: Masterworks from the Adirondacks. Exhibition catalogue. Cooperstown, NY: Fenimore Art Museum, 2004. Johns, Elizabeth. Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation. Berkeley, CA, and London: University of Califorinia Press, Ltd., 2002. Allen, Brian T. "Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute." American Art Review: Special edition, The Western Massachusetts Art Trail XVI, no. 3 (2004): 162-169. Unger, Miles. The Watercolors of Winslow Homer. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four & Exhibit Seven. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1958. Jamieson, Paul, and Neal Burdick, eds. The Adirondack Reader: Four Centuries of Adirondack Writing. Third edition. Lake George, NY: Adirondack Mountian Club, 2009. Troccoli, Joan Carpenter, introd. Charlie Russell & Friends. Denver: Denver Art Museum, 2010. Goodrich, Lloyd. Record of Works by Winslow Homer. Edited and expanded by Abigail Booth Gerdts. 5 vols. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2005. Goldfarb, Hilliard T., ed. Expanding Horizons: Painting and Photography of American and Canadian Landscape, 18601919. Exhibition catalogue. Montreal: Museum of Fine Arts; Paris: Somogy éditions d'art, 2009. American Art Association. Catalogue of the Private Art Collection of Thomas B. Clarke, New York. Auction catalogue. New York: American Art Association, 1899. Union League Club. A Group of Paintings by American Artists Accepted for the Columbian Exposition. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Union League Club, 1893. Lawrence, James. "Exhibition Review: Winslow Homer. Williamstown." The Burlington Magazine 147, no. 1233 (December 2005): 84850. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011. Polley, Robert L., ed. Great Art Treasures in America's Smaller Museums. Text by Harold E. Haydon. New York: Putnam's, 1967.

Provenance

[Reichard & Co., New York, 1890]; Thomas B. Clarke, New York (by 1891–99, his sale, American Art Association, 14–18 Feb. 1899, no. 360); Chauncy J. Blair, Chicago (from 1899); Mary Mitchell Blair, Chicago, his wife (by 1915); [Scott & Fowles, New York, sold to Clark, 3 Nov. 1916]; Sterling Clark (1916–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.

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