Walter Launt Palmer

Walter Launt Palmer holds the title as "the painter of the American winter" for his vivid and brilliant winter scenes. As an impressionist painter that emerged at the turn of the 20th century, Palmer took great interest in the picturesque American landscape, though he particularly focused on the rendering of this landscape glistening with snow. His pictures evoke an unreplicable natural serenity, and in this oil painting "The Winter Scene," Palmer invites us into a world of stillness. Just after a snowfall, with the trees still frothing with snow on their branches and the ground laid heavy with powder, Palmer captures the sun emerging upon this recently blanketed, peaceful world. The almost pointillist quality of his work is best seen in the water, where vivid colours like purple, yellow, and green dance along the liquid surface. In the shadows, too, we see a rich interplay of deep blues and yellows, perfectly executed through Palmer''s technically astute mark-making. This work emerges from a time period in which the great American outdoors was being appreciated and reproduced, with Palmer and contemporaries like William Hart, Homer Dodge Martin, and Edward Gay leading this movement.

Walter Launt Palmer (August 1, 1854 – April 16, 1932) was an American Impressionist painter. Palmer's father Erastus Dow Palmer was a prominent sculptor, and the family residence near Albany, NY, was frequented by his father's friends, notably Frederic Edwin Church. Palmer began his formal artistic training under portrait painter Charles Loring Elliott, but it was Church, the period's premier landscape artist, who later tutored the young Palmer in landscape painting.

In 1873, Palmer made one of many trips abroad in order to work with Carolus-Duran. It was at this time that he met one of Carolus-Duran's other young students, John Singer Sargent. The artist continued to take frequent and lengthy trips to Europe, and acquired a growing interest in French Impressionism as well as an enduring attraction to Venetian subjects. When Palmer returned to the United States, he spent most of his time in Albany, where artists like William and James Hart, Homer Dodge Martin, and Edward Gay also painted. Here, Palmer began painting building interiors, his first significant series of work.[3] He also spent some time working out of New York City at the Tenth Street Studio Building.

Palmer's most notable works are winter landscape scenes, a tradition he continued from the mid-1880s to the end of his life. For these accomplishments he has been called the "painter of the American winter." Exhibitions featuring Palmer's work have included Hawthorne Fine Art's A Perfect Solitude: The Art of Walter Launt Palmer (1854–1932) (December 12, 2006 – February 10, 2007) and the Albany Institute of History & Art's Walter Launt Palmer: Painting the Moment (March 28 - August 16, 2015.