Spanierman Gallery | An American Art Blog

Photograph of Jonas Lie outdoors with his painting materials. Courtesy Ellen von der Lippe.

Carol Lowrey

I’ve always admired impressionists and realists who loved to set their easels up on snow-blanketed landscapes during the frigid days of winter.  Such is the case with Jonas Lie (1880-1940), a New York-based artist who took great delight in translating the effects of chilly air and cool sunlight into paint.  Not surprisingly, contemporary critics attributed his penchant for winter themes to his Norwegian background (he was born in Moss, Norway); as noted by a writer for Craftsman (November 1907), “And that the blood of the North is truly in his veins is shown in many of the winter landscapes of Jonas Lie; born and cradled in the land of snow and ice, winter subjects appeal to him more than any others.”  In fact, Lie’s identification with images of winter prompted New York’s Ainslie Galleries to use a photograph (left) of him trekking through the snow––painting materials in hand––on the cover of the catalogue accompanying his one-man exhibition there in 1923.

Jonas Lie (1880 - 1940), "Northern Hills" (New York), 1922, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

The majority of Lie’s snowscapes were inspired by views he encountered in New England and in the Adirondack Mountains of northeastern New York.  The latter locale brings to mind works such as Northern Hills (below right), which dates from 1922, the year Lie purchased Howland Cottage, in Saranac Lake, so that his wife could undergo tuberculosis treatments at the nearby Trudeau Sanitarium.  Renowned for its rugged, unspoiled scenery, the region would have appealed to Lie, for it provided him with the mountains, forests and rivers that were part and parcel of his Norwegian heritage and that played a key role in his repertoire of motifs.  Taking his cue from Frits Thaulow­­––the famous Norwegian impressionist whose renderings of rushing streams set an important example––Lie used his time in the Adirondacks to portray meandering waterways flanked by birch trees and distant mountains, which is exactly what he gives us in Northern Hills, a painting notable for its fluent handling, as well as for its rich and varied palette.

Jonas Lie (1880 - 1940), "American Factory Town, Winter", oil on canvas, 41 x 35 inches

At the same time, Lie’s interest in snow-covered terrain was not limited to the rural environment, as demonstrated in American Factory Town, Winter, in which he explores a winter theme in conjunction with the urban/industrial landscape.  The exact location of the setting is unknown, but it might be a locale in New Jersey or in nearby Pennsylvania (any comments on the site would be welcomed).  Painted from an elevated vantage point, the image features some modest, two-storied dwellings lining a roadway that leads downwards to the heart of the community, where workers’ homes are clustered tightly together.  As our gaze takes in the distant skyline, we encounter tall stacks spewing thick, dark plumes of smoke into the broad expanse of sky—a reminder that the early twentieth century was a period of great industrial expansion in the United States.  The presence of a few figures making their way along the sidewalks adds a genre component to the vignette and suggests that this is a “company town,” whose inhabitants were typically employed by a single firm.  As in Northern Hills, Lie’s command of color is very much in evidence, for he eschews the low-keyed tonalities usually associated with snowscapes and instead adheres to a lively palette in which luminous reds, oranges, greens and yellows merge and mingle with an array of rich earth tones.  Deftly applied touches of white evoke the effects of dappled sunshine as it strikes rooftops and snow-bound streets, while Lie’s use of blues and mauves to denote areas of shadow affirms his familiarity with the chromatic strategies of impressionism.  Certainly, both paintings reveal his ability to detect beauty in the more prosaic corners of his surroundings and remind us that Jonas Lie was among those artists who took great delight in the lushness and beauty of snow; as put forth by the writer Edgar Cahill, “[Lie] has always loved snow feeling, as Scandinavians do, that snow is the year’s coat of ermine, the white mantle that protects . . . he sees more than the pictorial side of snow, he sees its whiteness, its stillness, its rich lusciousness” (“Jonas Lie: Poet of Today,” Shadowland, February 1923).

*For further reading, see William H. Gerdts and Carol Lowrey, Jonas Lie (1880-1940), exh. cat. (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006).

**Note: For another post on Jonas Lie, read Still Dreaming of Norway: (Part II) – Norwegian-born American Artist Jonas Lie.