Spring, oil on canvas, 28 x 24 in., signed lower left, painted circa 1907-1915

Provenance: Collection of Robert Rockmore, New York; Private Collection, New York; Anonymous Sale, Sotheby’s Parke Bernet, Jan. 27, 1965; Purchased from the above by Mr. Jacques Coleman; By descent to the current owner.

The subject and composition of this landscape is one that Lawson returned to several times throughout his career. An example now inthe Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, titled "Broken Fence: Spring Flood" (accession no. 1937.15.1), shows the same fence, river, and trees, all from the same perspective, but in a more subdued palette. The same can be saidfor another example that was sold at Christie's in New York on May 25, 2006 (lot 72), though in this instance the view was executed in a lighter pastel-like tonality. The serialization of the subject suggests that this view, possibly a tributary of the Harlem river near Washington Heights where Lawson lived and painted until 1908, offered certain artistic problems that were particularly engaging for him, like the foreshortening of the fence as it recedes away from the viewer and the delineation of the leaves scattered on the ground against the rippling reflections of the trees. Compared with the two examples mentioned above, the present painting features an extended palette that lends a greater depth of contrast to the whole composition. Particularly on the embankment closest to the viewer, we see layers of bright oranges, reds, and greens against earthy tones, built up much in the same way that leaves build up the various layers of the forest floor.

[relined, UV examination indicates no in-painting]