Five Sketches of Young Boys

Winslow Homer's spare pen studies capture boys in casual play and rest—seated, crouching, standing—rendered with economical line work. The sketches show Homer's characteristic interest in contemporary American life and childhood activity. Executed during the 1870s when illustrated newspapers and magazines drove demand for visual storytelling, such studies served as preparatory work for wood engravings that would appear in Harper's Weekly and other periodicals. Homer's ability to convey posture and personality through minimal mark-making exemplifies the draftsmanship underlying the illustrated press that would evolve into modern sequential comics.