Meet Author William R. Cross

Bill Cross believes that all people – children, women and men – need stories. A well-told tale of someone else’s life helps us make better sense of our own lives. Bill’s focus is on the lives of women and men who have shaped our culture. Their stories are also the stories of their times and their work, which frames their lives. These stories nudge us to ask: What do you see? How do you see? What do you not see? Why?

Cross’s first biography is Winslow Homer: American Passage, to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in April 2022. He has published myriad articles and served as Curator of Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painter’s Journey 1869-1880 (Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts). The exhibition and the 200-page catalogue he wrote revealed Homer’s formation as a marine painter. In a full-page review, Lance Esplund of The Wall Street Journal described the exhibition as “handsome, historically rich and perfectly positioned.” Sebastian Smee of The Washington Post praised the exhibition’s “intimate, textured sense” and its “excellent catalogue.”

Winslow Homer’s work casts a wide and deep appeal – yet few facts are known of the life of the man behind the art – until now. The story of his life illuminates the stories embedded in his art – and the stories of our own times. As Crosscurrents: Winslow Homer, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will show, Homer’s art and life relate closely to the struggles of today. As people of all races, ages and places look together at our shared visual heritage, we may find new ways to understand one another – and ourselves.

Cross is Chair of the Advisory Board for the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, and President of Citizens’ Initiative for Manchester Affordable Housing (dba Citizens by the Sea). For more than three decades he managed investment teams and investment portfolios, while also writing, researching and lecturing on art, faith and history. A Chartered Financial Analyst, he was a Scholar of the House at Yale College, from which he graduated magna cum laude. He also earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He and his wife live in Manchester, Massachusetts, twenty-five miles east and north of Boston.