Artwork
Love of Winter
Love of Winter is an oil painting by the Ashcan School artist George Bellows. It dates from 1914 and is held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
- Accession no.
- 109780
- Credit line
- Friends of American Art Collection
About this work
You see people skating and watching on a snowy day in this painting. The scene is full of energy, with people of all ages and classes together. The artist used this scene to show his love of winter, inspired by a big blizzard that hit New York City in 1914, which made him want to paint the snow every year. You can learn more about this style by looking at the technique of impasto.
Overview
The composition centers on skaters and spectators, rendered with vivid color and vigorous brushwork that convey motion and cold air.
Painted in February 1914, Love of Winter captures a bustling winter scene in a New York City park following a heavy snowstorm. George Bellows created the work shortly after the blizzard that inspired him, translating the sudden snowfall and energetic public response into a dynamic oil painting. The composition centers on skaters and spectators, rendered with vivid color and vigorous brushwork that convey motion and cold air.
Subject & Meaning
The painting portrays a cross-section of urban life, children, adults, and elders from varied social backgrounds, engaged in winter recreation. Bellows presents skating not as a privileged pastime but as a shared, public experience. The scene reflects the democratizing nature of urban parks in early 20th-century America, where leisure became accessible beyond class boundaries, grounded in the artist’s personal devotion to winter’s transient beauty.
Technique & Style
Bellows employed thick, directional brushstrokes and high-contrast pigments, crimson coats, mustard-yellow scarves, emerald trees, to heighten the visual tension of the snowy landscape. The impasto technique adds texture and urgency, mimicking the rush of wind and skates cutting through ice. His approach merges realism with expressive energy, avoiding idealized calm in favor of the raw, kinetic pulse of the moment.
History & Provenance
Created immediately after a record snowstorm on February 13, 1914, the painting emerged from Bellows’s personal vow to depict snow annually. He completed it swiftly, responding to the storm’s immediacy. The work remained in his possession until his death in 1925, after which it entered a private collection before being acquired by a public institution in the 1930s.
Context
Early 20th-century New York saw expanding public spaces like Central Park as vital social arenas. Winter activities, once limited to the elite, became common among working-class residents. Bellows’s painting aligns with broader cultural shifts toward communal recreation and urban realism, capturing a moment when nature’s disruption became a catalyst for collective joy.
Legacy
Love of Winter stands as a testament to Bellows’s commitment to capturing contemporary urban life with emotional honesty. While not widely exhibited during his lifetime, the painting later gained recognition for its vivid portrayal of seasonal rhythm and social cohesion. It remains a key example of American Realism’s engagement with everyday experience under harsh, beautiful conditions.
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Artist & collection
Artist
George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City.
