Late Afternoon, New York, Winter (December 4th)

Frederick Childe Hassam, Late Afternoon, New York, Winter, 1900. Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 62.68.

I think we’ve already established how much I love paintings of New York City in the snow, since I’ve written two previous posts on the topic (Snow falls softly on the city: the paintings of Guy C. Wiggins and Snow in New York, the Contemporary Version). For many Americans, particularly those who live in the northeastern part of the country, the snow-covered New York cityscape is inextricably associated with the Christmas season. Of course it looks quite different in the twenty-first century than it does here. This painting, Late Afternoon, New York, Winter by American Impressionist artist Childe Hassam, was painted in 1900. The city was less developed and certainly not nearly as bright and commercial, but a little something of the New York City feeling – the one that attracts me so strongly to this subject matter – is the same nonetheless. Late Afternoon, New York, Winter is owned by and on view at the Brooklyn Museum.