News & Nightmares May 19, 2010

This exhibition looks at 19th-century wood engraved illustrations created for the mass media from the perspective of two radically different artists. From 1857 through the 1880s, Winslow Homer designed over 200 wood engravings for illustrated periodicals such as Harper's Weekly. Homer's drawn-on-the-spot illustrations depicted the public and private life of Americans, including their entertainments, holidays, and sports, as well as portraits of political figures and events, and images of the Civil War. In 1933, Max Ernst cut up and recombined illustrated melodramatic and romantic 19th-century French periodicals to create his astonishing Surrealist collage novel. 'News & Nightmares' includes 16 prints designed by Winslow Homer from the Art Center's complete collection of Winslow Homer's wood engravings.