newsmakers

newsmakers

Rare Winslow Homer portrait is displayed

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.

A rare oil painting by American artist Winslow Homer has been given to a Massachusetts museum.

Clark Art Institute in Williamstown says the 1878 commissioned portrait of Charles Prentice Howland has never been publicly exhibited, but went on view Friday.

The institute says the portrait depicts the 9-year-old dressed for school with a book bag over his shoulder, posing “stiffly and perhaps impatiently” for the artist. The Boston-born Homer was a friend of the boy’s father, prominent New York judge Henry Howland, and his uncle, the artist Alfred Howland.

Clark says the painting has remained with the Howland family since 1878. Museum director Michael Conforti says the gift will add to Clark’s existing collection of Homer’s works.

Homer’s painting “Snap the Whip,” his most famous, is part of the permanent collection of the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown.

Associated Press