End of Winter

Like many of Lawson's paintings, End of Winter is not dated, but it seems to fall in with the paintings he did in the early years of the twentieth century that depict the environs surrounding the Harlem River in upper Manhattan. By the late 1890s Lawson had taken up residence in the Washington Heights area of New York City. Even after he moved downtown to Greenwich in 1906, he would often travel by subway, armed with paint and canvas, to the outskirts of the city to paint the less congested countryside. Lawson liked to portray the landscape in winter, for it allowed him to demonstrate his skill at capturing the season's unique atmosphere and mood. In this scene he used the hazy earth tones of the background to communicate the subdued quality of winter's light, offset by the bright reds, greens, and blues that adorn the structures and surrounding flora. The scene has a very lonely quality, made even more so by the small isolated figure that is nearly hidden within the built-up surface. The melting snow signals the coming spring, a time of new growth and opportunity for both nature and artist. On the back of the canvas are the words "The Greenhouses," which not only reveal the possibility of an earlier title but also the identity of the structures in the scene.