Winslow Homer · 1899

The Gulf Stream

Posters from $10.82 USD · Canvas from $28.14 USD

Ships anywhere in the USA

A Black sailor adrift on a dismasted skiff in the Caribbean, sharks circling, a waterspout on the horizon — Homer's most-debated late painting. The Met.

Up to 26.6 × 16 in · landscape

Size

Larger sizes are unavailable for this painting because the source scan's resolution wouldn't print at gallery quality.

Format & finish

Archival cotton canvas stretched over a wooden frame. Ready to hang as-is. No external frame.

Scale next to a 5'10" person

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Hand-printed in our studio

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Materials & quality

›Canvas & inks

Giclée-printed on archival cotton canvas with fade-resistant pigment inks, hand-stretched over wooden bars. Gallery-wrapped — ready to hang with no extra frame needed.

›Floater frame

Hand-finished solid wood floater frame in five finishes. The canvas sits inside with a clean shadow gap — the way galleries hang contemporary canvas.

›Posters

Premium archival paper — 200 gsm soft matte or 230 gsm vibrant glossy. Ships flat or rolled, ready for your own frame.

›Faithful to the source

Printed from the highest-resolution museum and archive scans available. Each painting's maximum size is capped at what its source scan can support at gallery quality.

About this painting

The story of The Gulf Stream

A man lies across the deck of a small sloop with its mast snapped off, watching sharks circle in a sea that has turned from turquoise to ink. A waterspout is coming up behind him. Far off to the left, so small you may miss it, a ship is passing without stopping. Winslow Homer painted it in 1899 after winters in the Bahamas, and it belongs to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. When people asked him what it meant, he said the man would be rescued, and nobody believed him.

On a wall, The Gulf Stream is a sea painting first. The dominant colors are deep teal, slate blue, and white foam, with a strip of storm-gray sky and the warm brown of the boat's hull and the sailor's skin. It has weight, and it suits a study, a den, a living room, or a covered porch, and it fits coastal, nautical, and traditional American interiors that can take some drama. We offer it up to the Medium at 26.6 × 16 in, which gives the water enough scale to feel like open ocean, and the Small at 19.9 × 12 in works well in a pair with another Homer.

Homer's The Fog Warning and Eight Bells are his other great pictures of men against the North Atlantic, and Aivazovsky's The Ninth Wave is the Russian version of the same situation with a happier sunrise. More from Winslow Homer.

Printed in our studio from a public-domain photograph of the Met's canvas, with the greens of the water matched to the original rather than to postcards.

About the artist

Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters of 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art in general.

All Winslow Homer prints →

Biography adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Frequently asked

The Gulf Stream— questions & answers

›What is the meaning of The Gulf Stream?

The painting shows a Black sailor adrift in a small, dismasted, rudderless fishing boat, struggling against storm-tossed waves with sharks circling and a waterspout on the horizon. It was Homer's statement on a theme — man against the perils of the sea — that had interested him for more than a decade.

›When was The Gulf Stream painted?

Winslow Homer painted it in 1899, drawing on years of boating near Florida, Cuba, and the Caribbean. It remains his most-debated late painting.

›Where is The Gulf Stream painting now?

The original is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

›Can I buy a canvas print of The Gulf Stream in the US?

Yes — Chromora prints The Gulf Stream on museum-quality archival cotton canvas, hand-finished in our studio and shipped anywhere in the USA. A single print over $100 USD ships free.

Pairs well with