Winslow Homer, who created some of the most breathtaking and influential images in the history of watercolor, was, famously, a man who received almost no formal artistic education. Acknowledged in his own day as America’s most original and independent watercolorist, he had an intuitive relationship with this challenging yet flexible medium. Between 1873 and 1905, he created nearly 700 watercolors. A staple of his livelihood, watercolors were also his classroom, a way for him to learn through experimentation-with color theory, composition, materials, optics, style, subject matter, and technique-far more freely than he could in the more public and tradition-bound arena of oil paint- ing. This exhibition provides an intimate look at how one of America’s most celebrated painters discovered for himself, over a period of more than three decades, the secrets of the watercolor medium. WINSLOW HOMER: THE COLOR OF LIGHT Surveying the artist’s 70-year career, Edward Hopper will fea- ture watercolors and oil paintings, and concentrate on his most productive years-from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s-when he created his most enduring images such as the Art Institute’s iconic Nighthawks (1942). A pivotal American artist who was intensely private, Hopper made solitude and introspection important themes in his paintings. The exhibition will be ar- ranged chronologically and thematically, focusing on the work he executed in Gloucester and Truro, Massachusetts, Maine, and New York. Approximately 50 oils and 30 watercolors, to- gether with literature and history of the artist’s own time, will show Hopper’s place in the tradition of American realism and modernism. Winslow Homer, “The Water Fan,” 1898/99. The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Dorothy A., John A., Jr., and Christopher Holabird in memory of William and Mary Holabird. Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks,” 1942, oil on canvas, 30” x 60”, Friends of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago Friends of Art Fine Arts Building, FA 125 Indiana University 1201 East 7th Street Bloomington, IN 47405 NON PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID BLOOMINGTON, IN PERMIT NO. 2 EDWARD HOPPER RETROSPECTIVE Professor Sarah Burns will speak on Winslow Homer on Friday, April 11 at 5 pm in Fine Arts Room 010.