High Bridge--Winter

At Cos Cob, Lawson studied with both J. Alden Weir and John Twachtman. The artist had been born in Nova Scotia and spent his boyhood in Ontario. In 1890, he enrolled in the Art Students League in New York and began spending summers in Cos Cob. It was at the Connecticut colony that Lawson first painted out-of-doors, en plein air.

High Bridge--Winter dates from Lawson's early period (between 1898 and 1915), when he lived for a time in Washington Heights, at the northern tip of Manhattan. Having left the area in 1906 when he moved to Greenwich Village, the artist often returned to paint his favorite sites until about 1916. This composition represents the High Bridge, which was modeled after a Roman aqueduct and which crosses the Harlem River at 174th Street.