Spring Thaw

One of Ernest Lawson’s best-known works, Spring Thaw combines his two favorite themes: snow and rivers. In the sharply angled bend of a still stream, two deserted rowboats rest amidst the softening remnants of winter ice; on the near bank, the previous season’s grasses emerge from the retreating snow. Rows of slender trees, reflected in the wavering surface of the water, barely screen the forms of distant houses, muted to shades of pale pink in the peculiar humid atmosphere of a late-winter warming. Through a tactile recreation of the contrasting surfaces of gritty melting snow and its shimmering liquid counterpart, Spring Thaw evokes the transitory pause between the frozen stasis of winter and the gathering momentum of springtime renewal. The work’s richly painted surface also functions purely as decorative design: the echoing, retreating diagonals of riverbanks, water, and distant ridge play against the screen of vertical lines formed by the trees, their reflections in the water, and the foreground grasses.

This patterning and the painting’s subtle color range evoke Japanese aesthetics, which deeply influenced Western artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, notably John Henry Twachtman, who was among Lawson’s most influential teachers. Lawson also emulated his mentor’s interest, demonstrated in Twachtman's Winter Landscape (TF 1992.136), in rivers and wintertime settings. From Twachtman and from his experience in France in the 1890s, Lawson absorbed the broken brushwork, heightened color, and outdoor painting technique characteristic of impressionism. Particularly after he settled in New York City in 1898, he focused on urban as well as rural waterways, which he depicted using a personal, expressive impressionist approach with broken brushwork to build up his paint in heavily textured, sparkling surfaces. Spring Thaw combines an essentially impressionist focus on natural light and transient phenomena with an interest in the mundane, even gritty aspects of life to which Lawson’s artistic associates, the urban realists known as the Ashcan school, devoted their figural art.

Lawson rarely dated his paintings and he repeated favorite subjects over the course of his career, making his works difficult to date. Spring Thaw’s clear indebtedness to Twachtman in subject, coloration, and paint application, however, suggests that it is a relatively early work. Like the Terra Foundation’s evidently later but also undated Springtime, Harlem River (TF 1992.45), it may portray a scene around the upper reaches of Manhattan, which were still relatively rural in character in the years around the turn of the twentieth century.

Ernest Lawson 1873–1939: Retrospective Exhibition, ACA Heritage Gallery, New York, New York, April 25–May 20, 1967. [exh. cat.]

Ernest Lawson Retrospective, ACA Galleries, New York, New York, November 27–December 24, 1976. [exh. cat.]

American Paintings from the Collection of Daniel J. Terra, Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania (organizer). Venue: Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, June 5–July 17, 1977. [exh. cat.]

American Impressionism, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (organizer). Venues: Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, January 3–March 2, 1980; The Frederick S. Wight Gallery, University of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, March 9–May 4, 1980; Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, May 16–June 22, 1980; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts, July 1–August 31, 1980. [exh. cat.]

Masterworks in American Art from the Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, April 27–September 12, 1985.

Winter, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 1–March 16, 1986. [exh. cat.]

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Americans at Home and Abroad, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 6–29, 1987.

An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 28–October 1, 1988.

Attitudes Toward Nature, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 30, 1995–April 21, 1996.

Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920 (The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 15, 1999; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 10, 1999–May 7, 2000 (in modified form). [exh. cat.]

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003 (on exhibit extended run: November 2, 2002–March 2, 2003).

American Classics from the Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 14–June 15, 2003.

Copley to Cassatt: Masterworks from the Terra Collection, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut and Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, September 5–December 7, 2003.

Manifest Destiny, Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois and Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Loyola University Museum of Art, May 17–August 10, 2008. [exh. cat.]

The Eight and American Modernisms, Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, and Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (organizers). Venues: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, March 6–May 24, 2009; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 6–August 23, 2009. [exh. cat]

Monet and American Impressionism, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Florida in partnership with Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia and Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee (organizers). Venues: Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Florida, February 3–May 24, 2015; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, June 27–September 20, 2015; Telfair Museum's Jepson Center for the Arts, Savannah, Georgia, October 16, 2015–January 24, 2016. [exh. cat.]

Ernest Lawson 1873–1939: Retrospective Exhibition. (exh. cat., ACA Heritage Gallery). New York: ACA Heritage Gallery, Inc., 1967. Ill. no. 13.

Ernest Lawson Retrospective. Essay by Dennis Anderson. (exh. cat., ACA Galleries). New York: ACA Galleries, 1976. Text p. 37 (checklist); cat. no. 64, p. 3 (color).

Driscoll, J. P. American Paintings from the Collection of Daniel J. Terra. (exh. cat., Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University). University Park, Pennsylvania: Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, 1977. Ill. (black & white).

Gerdts, William H. American Impressionism. (exh. cat., Henry Art Gallery). Seattle, Washington: Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, 1980. Frontispiece (color), ill. p. 110 (color).

Kirshner, Judith Russi. "The Terra Collection." United: The Magazine of the Friendly Skies (December 1982): 52–59. Ill. p. 54 (color).

Hall, Donald and Clifton D. Olds. Winter. (exh. cat., Hood Museum of Art). Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 1986. Text p. 42; ill. p. 97 (color).

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-151, p. 260 (color).

Southgate, M. Therese. "The Cover." The Journal of the American Medical Association 263:11 (March 16, 1990): 1485. Text p. 1485; ill. cover (color).

Gerdts, William H. et al. Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 99; fig. 100, p. 99 (black & white).

Gerdts, William H. et al. Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 99; fig. 100, p. 99 (black & white).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 21; ill. p. 21 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 21; ill. p. 21 (color).

Brownlee, Peter John. Manifest Destiny / Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. (exh. cat., Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art and Loyola University Museum of Art, 2008. Text p. 36 (checklist).

Kennedy, Elizabeth et al. The Eight and American Modernisms. (exh. cat., New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Conecticut and Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WIisconsin). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2009. Text pp. 78, 175 (checklist); Ill. p. 79 (color).

Román, Dulce M. Monet and American Impressionism. (exh. cat. Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville). Gainesville, Florida: University of Florida, 2015. Ill. p. 121 (color).