Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00005961Life-Size Black Bass
Inscriptions
Signed recto, lower left corner, in brush and black watercolor: “HOMER / 1904” Inscribed verso, upper left corner, in pen and brown ink: “The Black Bass [covered by tape]/ No. 3”; center, in blue pencil: “17” [encircled]; center, in graphite: “c.23621” (bow drawn around inscription); lower right corner, in graphite, upside down: “1192 – IEE"; lower right corner: “13” [encircled]
Provenance
Charles Deering (1852-1927) and Mrs. Charles Deering (née Marion Denison Whipple; c. 1857-1943), Chicago, by 1932 [Bolton 1932]. By descent to their daughter, Mrs. Chauncey McCormick (née Marion Deering; 1886-1965), Chicago. By descent to her son, Brooks McCormick (1917-2006), Chicago.
Exhibition history
The Art Institute of Chicago, "Homer Centenary", July 16–August 16, 1936, as "Leaping Fish" [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 19, 1936]. Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, "Two Hundred Years of American Painting from Private Chicago Collections," June 25-September 2, 1983, cat. 22. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, "Winslow Homer Watercolors," March 2-May 11, 1986, pp. 232, 235, and 236, fig. 220, cat. by Helen Cooper; also traveled to Fort Worth, Tex., The Amon Carter Museum, June 6-July 27, 1986; and New Haven, Mass., Yale University Art Gallery, September 11-November 2, 1986. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light," February 16-May 11, 2008, pp. 194, 195 (ill.), 198, preface n. 40, cat. by Martha Tedeschi and Kristi Dahm.
Publications
Theodore Bolton, “Water Colors by Homer: Critique and Catalogue,” The Fine Arts XVIII: 5 (April 1932), p. 54, as "Fish--Leaping Fish". Eleanor Jewett, "Art Institute Is Presenting a Diversified Group of Exhibits," Chicago Daily Tribune, July 19, 1936, p. E10, as "Leaping Fish". Winslow Homer's Florida, 1886-1909, exh. cat. (Jacksonville, Fla.: The Cummer Gallery of Art, 1977), p. 34, cat. 36 (ill.). Patricia Junker and Sarah Burns, Winslow Homer: Artist and Angler, exh. cat. (Fort Worth, Tex.: Amon Carter Museum; San Francisco: Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 2002), pp. 63, 86, 178-180, fig. 99.
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Winslow Homer / American, 1836-1910
- Date
- 1904
- Medium
- Transparent watercolor, with touches of opaque watercolor, rewetting, blotting and scraping, over graphite, on thick, moderately textured (twill texture on verso), ivory wove paper (left, right and lower edges trimmed)
- Dimensions
- 35 × 52.6 cm (13 13/16 × 20 3/4 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- prints and drawing
- Place
- United States
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Brooks McCormick
- Accession no.
- 2007.115
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Open-access museum record · AT-00005961
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