Winslow Homer was born in Boston to an old, established New England family. In 1849, Homer's father sold his hardware business and moved his family to the West Coast to take part in the California Gold Rush. The cost of this venture kept Homer from attending Harvard, and at age 19 he became an apprentice to a lithographer. His career as a professional artist was born.

Following his work at the lithographer's shop, Homer became a freelance draftsman, specializing in woodblock engraving. From his successes in developing the technique of woodblock engraving, Homer was able to move into the field of magazine illustration with little difficulty, and he soon became very well known. By the 1860s, he was contributing regularly to Harper's Weekly magazine as an illustrator of events occurring in the Civil War.

After the war, Homer traveled in Europe. There he was influenced by the works of French artists Édouard Manet and Gustave Courbet.

By the 1880s, Homer had moved on to paintings that were to become his trademark: those that dealt with his great love for the sea. He captured a turbulent sea in which a man and boat could be engulfed in an instant, as well as the calm beauty of a stream and the relaxing calm of a warm day in the Caribbean. Because he loved and captured the elemental forces of nature, Homer is considered a Realist. His unique talent enabled him—as few others did before him and few have done since—to express the reality of America.