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. Read the rest of this entry »
