From drought in ancient Egypt to the recent tragic floods in Texas, weather has impacted human existence through the ages—and has long been a subject for artists. Drawn from HoMA’s works on paper collection, Eye on the Weather focuses on American artists from the late 19th and early 20th century and their treatment of weather, as subject, in prints. 

Iconic artists like Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, George Bellows, and Grant Wood, join lesser-recognized, but no less deserving women and Pacific-based printmakers like Clare Veronica Leighton, Isami Doi, and Armand Manookian, all of whom used atmospheric effects to set a sunny or somber tone, or to enhance their visual storytelling with added ecological or social drama. In some examples, weather takes on an almost propagandistic role, in addition to simply serving as an artistic document of place during a particular season or time of day.

While the featured artists hail from different regions of the US, ranging from Maine to Hawai‘i, all employ weather as a device to envision the American landscape as an evolving theater of abundance, social encounter, and political upheaval.

For more information please head to the Honolulu Museum of Art website.

Tagged 21/09.