Winslow Homer

American artist Winslow Homer began his career as a newspaper artist, producing illustrations of current events from railroad accidents to shifting social dynamics in the aftermath of the Civil War. By 1865, publications like Harper’s Weekly, which regularly printed Homer’s work, sold at least 100,000 copies every week, making their weekly readership upwards of half a million people. 

For one of Homer’s drawings to appear in print, it was first transferred onto a woodblock, then manually carved by an engraver working in a large commercial workshop. This time-consuming process was not very conducive to the rapid pace of the news cycle. To speed up production, large woodblocks were often cut into smaller pieces so multiple engravers could work on the same image at the same time. The gaps between woodblocks often remain visible in these final prints. Ironically, in the example at right, a gap cuts across a Civil War veteran's shoulder near the site of his amputation.