Ernest Lawson 1873 - 1939

M. Knoedler & Co., New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1978

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; San Francisco, California, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Detroit, Michigan, Detroit Institute of Arts, American Paintings from the Manoogian Collection, June 1989-May 1990, no. 69, p. 184, illustrated p. 185
Lugano Castagnola, Switzerland, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Masterworks of American Impressionism, July-October 1990, no. 59, p. 140, illustrated p. 141
Quebec City, Quebec, Musée de Quebec; New York, America's Society, Visions of Light and Air, Canadian Impressionism, 1885-1920, September-December 1995
Hokkaido, Japan, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art; Shiga, Japan, The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga; Akita, Japan, The Akita Museum of Modern Art; Tokuyama, Japan, Tokuyama City Museum of Art History; Sogo, Japan; Sogo Museum of Art, From the Hudson River School to Impressionism: American Paintings from the Manoogian Collection, July 1997-February 1998, no. 58, illustrated
Memphis, Tennessee, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Celebrate America: 19th Century Paintings from the Manoogian Collection, February-April 1999, no. 28, p. 74, illustrated p. 75
Vero Beach, Florida, Vero Beach Museum of Art, Masters of Light: Selections of American Impressionism from the Manoogian Colllection, January-April 2006, no. 25, illustrated

Ingo F. Walther, ed., Impressionism 1860-1920, London, 2006, illustrated p. 638

A member of the revolutionary group of painters known as “The Eight,” Ernest Lawson was unique in his preoccupation with landscape subjects. After studying with John H. Twatchtman and J. Alden Weir in Cos Cob, Connecticut, Lawson moved to New York and found inspiration for many of his paintings in the diverse terrain of Northern Manhattan, where he was able to witness the integration of urban development and a natural environment. Lawson painted a number of views of this area, including Harlem River, which, like his best work, represents a stylistic bridge between Impressionism and Realism.

Executed when Lawson was living in Greenwich Village, Harlem River accurately depicts the metropolitan landscape of the Bronx at that time, with Veteran’s Hospital at left and Webb’s Academy and Home for Shipbuilders at right. Lawson placed an emphasis on color and distinguished himself from the other realist painters of the early 20^th century by imbuing mundane urban scenes with an Impressionistic palette and vivid tones. He himself observed, “Color is my specialty in art. That’s my special technique; experiment with color. I did it from the beginning… It affects me like music affects some persons–emotionally. I like to play with color like a composer playing with counterpoint in music. It’s sort of rhythmic proportion” (Valerie Leeds, Ernest Lawson, New York, 2000, p. 13). This use of color is particularly evident in Harlem River as William H. Gerdts notes, “Lawson's rough paint quality, referred to as 'crushed jewels' of color, was particularly effective in projecting the flow of the water. The pigments are laid very broadly in the foreground, more delicately on the opposite shore, and there is also a chromatic contrast between the richer, darker tones in the foreground and the paler ones in the distance. Against this landscape setting, the artist's draftsmanship in defining the small tug boat and the propped up signboard at the left is actually quite careful. The boat, especially, imparts a liveliness to the scene which is truly an early twentieth century urban landscape, with large buildings alternating with still open tracts of land" (Masterworks of American Impressionism, Einsiedeln, Switzerland, 1990, p. 140).