Winter went to sea at the age of 20 in order to earn enough money to go to art school. He gained recognition from his fellow sailors by decorating chests for them and performing other artistic work on board ship. He sailed out of England for the United States in 1916 and worked on American ships until 1921 when he entered the National Academy school, stuyding with Hinton, Maynard and Hawthorne. In 1925 he won the Mooney Travelling Scholarship which enabled him to go to Rome and Paris. He also studied at Hawthorne's summer school on Cape Cod, at the L.C. Tiffany Foundation in Oyster Bay, Long Island and at the American Academy in Rome. In 1928 he married Mary Taylor of Centerville, Iowa, a fellow student at the Academy. She studied at the NAD from 1923-1926.
In 1937 Winter was commissioned by the Treasury Art Project to paint in the Virgin Islands, to do aboard-ship scenes of a curise of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter :Champlain", and to paint the daily activities of the Coast Guard at Cape May, New Jersey.
On the recommendation of Rockwell Kent, Winter made his home on Monhegan Island, living there year round after 1940. He was represented by Grand Central Art Galleries where he had a one man show in 1948 and a memorial exhibition in 1960.
Winter specialized in painting works about the sea, drawing from his first hand experience. As both of our paintings demonstrate, Winter's paintings often focus on people and their emotional relationships to the sea.
