Winter

Artist Régis Francois Gignoux (French, 1816 - 1882)

Date1853

MediumOil on canvas; mounted on composite panel

DimensionsUnframed: 29 3/4 × 39 3/4 inches (75.57 × 100.97 cm)
Framed: 34 1/2 × 44 3/8 inches (87.63 × 112.71 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number33-104

Signed29i × 39i in. (75.6 × 101 cm) Signed and dated lower left: R. Gignoux / 1853.

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionWinter landscape, houses and skating figures in foreground, open water and ships in background.Gallery Label

Gallery Label

Régis Gignoux was one of many European artists who immigrated to the United States in the 1840s and 1850s. Born and trained in France, he settled in Brooklyn, New York, in 1840, and remained there for three decades. He was a leading landscapist in his day and a teacher of artists including George Inness and John La Farge.

Winter depicts the changes underway in Brooklyn at mid-century. A sawmill, smokestack and steamboats reflect industrial expansion, while the skating and fishing in the foreground suggest more rural aspects. Gignoux subtly modulated the colors through the sky and water creating a delicate, unifying atmosphere that gives a marvelous illusion of spatial depth and suggests that both strains of American life are compatible.

Published References

"The Acquisitions," Art Digest 8 (1 December 1933), 21;

"The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art: Complete Catalogue of Paintings and Drawings," Art News 32 (9 December 1933), 28;

NAMA 1933, 137;

NAMA 1941, 166;

NAMA 1959, 256;

James Thomas Flexner, That Wilder Image: The Paintings of America's Native School from Thomas Cole to Winslow Homer (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1962), 314;

James Thomas Flexner, That Wilder Image: The Native School from Thomas Cole to Winslow Homer (New York: Dover Publications, 1970), 259;

Lois Marie Fink, "The Role of France in American Art, 1850-1870," Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1970, vi, 79n2, 550-51;

NAMA 1973, 252;

NAMA 1977, 51;

Joseph S. Czestochowski, The American Landscape Tradition: A Study and Gallery of Paintings (New York: Dutton, 1982), 80-81;

NAMA 1991, 86.

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