Palm Tree, Nassau

Winslow Homer

Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Palm Tree, Nassau is a watercolor and graphite work on off-white wove paper executed by Winslow Homer during his second visit to the Bahamas in the winter of 1898–99. Composed vertically to accentuate the towering height of the central palm, the work depicts the dramatic approach of circular storm clouds, with the tree's branches bending forcefully in the wind while a red flag in the background—raised to signal a coming hurricane or squall—blows in the opposite direction, capturing the complexity of competing meteorological forces. Homer (1836–1910), one of the preeminent American Realist painters of the nineteenth century, made repeated winter journeys to the tropics between 1884 and 1905, using the Caribbean's crystalline light and dramatic weather as subjects to push watercolor in increasingly expressive directions. This work is held in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acquired through the Amelia B. Lazarus Fund in 1910.