ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Renowned American painter Harold Weston (1894-1972) grew up visiting his grandfather’s camp in the Adirondacks and hiking near Lower Ausable Lake. This wilderness region inspired many of his artworks within his lifetime. He climbed the same towering mountains to paint in his adulthood which he had conquered with his brother as a child.

His style, contrasting with other popular Adirondack artists’ hyper-realistic romanticism, reflects a modernist and expressionist technique. He uses a variety of visible brushstroke sizes to shape the detail in this painting, outlining the shapes of trees and rocks which reside on the shoreline. The balance of warm and cool complementary colors draws the viewer’s eye to each section of the painting. The cool purple hues in the water are in harmony with the warm yellow tones of the grass. These gentle sunset hues reflect the title of the work, Frost Before Night. Weston used a light green underpainting — a diluted wash — before he started to paint the details of this work, unifying the tone of the entire painting. This base color gives the painting more dimension when it peeks through his brush strokes, as opposed to a white canvas. The vast size of the Adirondacks is beautifully depicted, with the large brushstrokes towards the mountain on the left, and smaller brushstrokes on the trees and grass to the right. The mountain is pushed back into space, and the trees and grass are pulled forward, making the viewer feel as though standing right next to the trees while the top of the mountain is miles away. With this painting, Weston created a scene that reflects his nostalgia for childhood memories in the mountains. He captures many Adirondackers’ favorite aspect of the region: the open air between the meandering waterways and the soaring mountains.
– Adeline Riesenberger ’26

Harold Weston
Frost Before Night, 1930s-1940s
Oil on canvas
Richard F. Brush Art Gallery
SLU 69.107

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