Homeward Way

Charles Gruppe was born in Canada and moved at the age of ten to Rochester, New York.  The artist studied in Holland and much of his work, including this very large painting, is inspired by his nearly twenty years spent there. Gruppe was particularly influenced by the realist art of Anton Mauve, who specialized in outdoor scenes with peasants and animals.

In 1925, after viewing an exhibition of beautiful winter harbor scenes from Gloucester, Massachusetts by Frederick Mulhaupt, Charles and his son Emile, also a painter, moved to Cape Ann. The artist spent the next fifteen summers painting the harbor scenes that drew him to New England decades earlier.

This painting has an especially rich exhibition history including the official Salon in Paris (1908) and the International Exhibition in Berlin, where it was reproduced in color for the Masters of Color series in Leipzig.