Trivia 7-7-15 Extra, Extra!

[Trivia Master]

9. Where did Winslow Homer begin his career as a news artist sketching battle and camp scenes?

credit: @War Horse

 

[dlavin]

Harpers Weekly

 

[Copperhead-mi]

Harper's Weekly

 

[Brenal]

"Harper's sent Homer to the front lines of the American Civil War (1861–1865), where he sketched battle scenes and camp life, the quiet moments as well as the chaotic ones.[11] His initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of the famous Union officer, Major General George B. McClellan, at the banks of the Potomac River in October, 1861."

 

[Seduzal]

Began his career as a commercial illustrator

 

[MajGenl.Meade]

He began his War of the Rebellion sketches and paintings when he accompanied McClellan's Peninsula Campaign for two months, including the Siege of Yorktown and Fair Oaks actions. However, his first wartime sketch for Harper's was made in April 1861 in Alexandria VA as the troops embarked - the 6th PA Cavalry, equipped with lances!

http://www.civilwar.si.edu/homer_intro.html

 

[adisciu9]

Oct 1861 with Harpers Weekly attached to the Army of the Potomac.
Started sketching with in 1857, providing images to Harper's and Ballou's Pictorial. Harper's sent him to cover President Lincoln's inauguration in 1861.

 

[Stony]

In October of 1861, the publisher and editor of Harper's contacted the military to get permission for Homer to attach himself to the army with "such facilities as the interests of the service will permit for the discharge of his duties as our artist-correspondent." He received his pass on October 15 and soon began his first trip to the Army of the Potomac, encamped in Virginia. Harper's published the first of his war sketches "A Night Reconnaissance" on October 26, 1861.
source-http://www.ma150.org/day-by-day/1861-10-15/winslow-homer-becomes-special-artist-army-potomac

 

[GELongstreet]

Well, now the grammar makes this kind of tricky for me ...his career began at J.H. Bufford (which frequently got renamed) but he began sketching battle & camp scenes in October 61 at the AoPs camps along the Potomac river.

 

[TinCan]

At the camp of Maj. General George B. McClellan, along the banks of the Potomac River as an artist for Harper's.

 

[MRB1863]

according to: http://www.ma150.org/day-by-day/1861-10-15/winslow-homer-becomes-special-artist-army-potomac
Oct 15, 1861
Expired Image RemovedWinslow Homer, considered by many to be the greatest 19th Century American painter, is best known for his paintings of rural life and landscapes, especially those of the sea. However, before he created these iconic scenes, he worked as a "special artist" for Harper's Weekly, capturing the experiences of soldiers during the Civil War. At a time when there were few visual records of army life, Homer's illustrations significantly shaped the pubic view of the war. As Life observed a century later, Homer left us "One of the most perceptive pictorial records of the Union soldier's life."

Homer was born in Boston in 1836 and moved with his family to Cambridge in 1842. He was primarily a self-taught artist, though he served as an apprentice to a commercial lithographer in Boston in the mid 1850s. In 1857, Homer began his career as a freelance illustrator, providing images to magazines such as Harper's Weekly and Ballou's Pictorial, which described him as a "promising young artist." In 1859, he moved to New York City. Harper's offered his a full-time position but he opted to remain a freelancer. He had his first taste of capturing national affairs when Harper's sent him to cover President Lincoln's inauguration in 1861.

In October of 1861, the publisher and editor of Harper's contacted the military to get permission for Homer to attach himself to the army with "such facilities as the interests of the service will permit for the discharge of his duties as our artist-correspondent." He received his pass on October 15 and soon began his first trip to the Army of the Potomac, encamped in Virginia. Harper's published the first of his war sketches "A Night Reconnaissance" on October 26, 1861.

Homer traveled regularly to army camps over the course of the war, but he did not keep records of his travel. What historians know comes primarily from his illustrations. It is clear he spent some of his time with the 61st New York Infantry and the 5th New York Infantry, also known as Duryee's Zouaves. Many of his sketches would be sent to Harper's, where staff would create wood engravings that allowed mass production of the images. Homer also used some of his sketches to later create oil paintings.

Home sketched battles, but also the day-to-day of camp life. His focus was usually the regular soldier—he only published one illustration of a high-ranking officer, depicting General McClellan in "Hail to the Chief." Michael Kimmelman writes in the New York Times that Homer's first illustrations were witty camp images or typical battle portraits, while his paintings were "weightier, unsentimental and immediate." Kimmel describes Homer's first oil painting, "The Army of the Potomac—A Sharpshooter on Picket Duty" as "an accomplished image that in its compactness and lack of anecdotal detail, was unlike any art coming out of the war."

Homer never sketched dead soldiers—even though those images were common in newspapers—and he never presented heroic battle scenes. In the words of William Downes, Homer's work shows "no idealization of the stern and sordid aspects of the subject, but describing with the strictest veracity and with that accent of unexpected and unconventional candor… just those little things in army life which had before passed unobserved or unheeded by the military painters of other schools."

Homer traveled with the Army of the Potomac regularly through the end of the war, and his work shows evidence that he was present at the Battle of the Wilderness in May of 1864 and the siege of Petersburg later that year. While Homer's illustrations and paintings strongly influenced Americans' perceptions of the war, the war changed Homer as well. After his experience at the siege of Yorktown in 1862, his mother wrote: "He suffered much, was without food 3 days at a time & all in camp either died or were carried away with typhoid fever—plug tobacco & coffee was the Staples… He came home so changed that his best friends did not know him." As many of his biographers observe, Homer's experience in the war also had a significant impact on the acclaimed artist he would become. "The youthful zest for life of his Boston illustrations would not again be part of his style," writes Homer's biographer David Tatham, "His closeness to death, disease, and the suffering of the wounded left its mark."

 

[Pat Answer]

Harper's Weekly

According to this, his first sketches were of the 6 PA Cav at Alexandria, VA, in April 1861.
http://news.yale.edu/2015/04/20/embedded-artist-union-army-winslow-homer-captured-life-front

 

[nextcity]

On the banks of the Potomac River sketching George McClellan in 1861.

 

[BrrrBRRRR]

Harper's Weekly

 

[rhettbutler1865]

9. Where did Winslow Homer begin his career as a news artist sketching battle and camp scenes?

credit: @War Horse

From the studio he rented in 1859, in the Tenth Street Studio Building, New York City, Harper's Weekly sent him to the front lines of the Civil War--his initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of Maj. General George McClellan on the banks of the Potomac in October, 1861.

 

[FarawayFriend]

The answer depends on how the question is meant. Where he started his career (= became an artist, being an apprentice first) or where he started to draw sketches of the Civil War.
Wikipedia says:

"After Homer's high school graduation, his father saw a newspaper advertisement and arranged for an apprenticeship. Homer's apprenticeship at the age of 19 to J. H. Bufford, a Boston commercial lithographer, was a formative but "treadmill experience"
[...]
His initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of the famous Union officer, Major General George B. McClellan, at the banks of the Potomac River in October, 1861."

Here is the pass that allowed him access to the front:

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/w/index....ril_1,_1862.jpg&filetimestamp=20150317083616&

 

[chellers]

Harper's sent Homer to the front lines of the American Civil War (1861–1865), where he sketched battle scenes and camp life, the quiet moments as well as the chaotic ones.[11] His initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of the famous Union officer, Major General George B. McClellan, at the banks of the Potomac River in October, 1861.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Winslow_Homer&oldid=664830882
http://hoocher.com/Winslow_Homer/Winslow_Homer.htm

 

[ole]

In McClellan's camps near the Potomac.

 

[lelliott19]

Winslow Homer began his career sketching battle and camp scenes as a "special artist" for Harper's Weekly in April 1861 at Alexandria, Va.

"Armed with a letter from Fletcher Harper, the editor of Harper's Weekly, identifying him as a "special artist," Homer was able to move through the lines and gain access to the Army of the Potomac. Early in April 1861, he was in Alexandria and witnessed the embarkation of the army aboard steamers that would ferry it to the Peninsula near Richmond in preparation for General George B. McClellan's long-awaited spring offensive. A drawing he made of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry—the only Union regiment to carry lances—gave witness to Homer's eye for the unusual and the dramatic." http://www.civilwar.si.edu/homer_intro.html​

He was officially attached to the army Oct 15, 1861 and his first sketch was published in Harper's Weekly October, 26, 1861.

"In October of 1861, the publisher and editor of Harper's contacted the military to get permission for Homer to attach himself to the army with "such facilities as the interests of the service will permit for the discharge of his duties as our artist-correspondent." He received his pass on October 15 and soon began his first trip to the Army of the Potomac, encamped in Virginia. Harper's published the first of his war sketches "A Night Reconnaissance" on October 26, 1861. http://www.ma150.org/day-by-day/1861-10-15/winslow-homer-becomes-special-artist-army-potomac​

 

[Ken Rich]

apprenticed at J.H.Buford Lithography, Open his Tenth Street Studio Building in 1859 t work on his own drawings