Boys in a Dory

Winslow Homer

Watercolor and graphite on paper

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Boys in a Dory is a watercolor and graphite work on paper executed by Winslow Homer during his second productive summer in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1880, a period in which he produced roughly 100 watercolors depicting coastal life and the harbor community. The composition depicts boys in a flat-bottomed dory — a vessel common to the New England fishing trade — set against the luminous, rippling waters of Gloucester Harbor, rendered with washes of color applied over graphite underdrawing. Homer's early watercolor style was direct and unaffected, capturing the scintillating effects of sunlight on water and the idyllic yet quietly serious nature of childhood near the sea. As one of America's foremost Realist painters, Homer used such scenes to ground his growing mastery of watercolor in the observation of everyday American coastal life, a practice that would define the trajectory of his mature career.