Art, literature & historyAdirondacks Guide
1892
- Dating
- Exact year
- Held at
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Medium
- Transparent watercolor with touches of opaque watercolor, rewetting, blotting and scraping, over traces of graphite, on thick, moderately textured, ivory wove paper (top edge trimmed)
- Dimensions
- 32.9 × 54.5 cm (13 × 21 1/2 in.)
- Collection no.
- 1933.1234
- Attribution
- By the artist
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
About this artwork
Adirondacks Guide — Winslow Homer. 1892.
Medium: Transparent watercolor with touches of opaque watercolor, rewetting, blotting and scraping, over traces of graphite, on thick, moderately textured, ivory wove paper (top edge trimmed). Dimensions: 32.9 × 54.5 cm (13 × 21 1/2 in.).
Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
Adirondacks Guide is a sensitive portrait of the guide Rufus Wallace, shown returning from duck hunting in his canoe. Although the background of lake and sky are only loosely suggested, the details of the old man’s face, beard, and still-strong body are carefully rendered with brushstrokes of diluted color. His gaze, forward and slightly elevated, is evocative; one senses that the old man is at once alert to nature and lost in his own contemplations.
Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.