The Gulf Stream 1899 W Homer Ceramic Tile

The Gulf Stream is an 1899 oil painting by American artist Winslow Homer. It shows a Black man in a small, rudderless fishing boat struggling against the waves of the sea. The tumultuous sea surrounding him is infested with sharks, which appear in the foreground of the painting with open jaws. Homer painted The Gulf Stream when he was 63 years old, in the year following the death of his father. The painting has been interpreted as an expression of the artist's presumed sense of mortality and vulnerability.