Winslow Homer (1836-1910) is regarded by many as the greatest American painter of the nineteenth century.
Born in Boston and raised in rural Cambridge, he began his career as a commercial printmaker, first in Boston and then in New York, where he settled in 1859.
He briefly studied oil painting in the spring of 1861.
In October of the same year, he was sent to the front in Virginia as an artist-correspondent for the new illustrated journal, Harper's Weekly.