No other painter so poetically captured the beauty of winter in New York City as Guy Wiggins. Regarded as the last great American Impressionist, Wiggins possessed an intuitive understanding of light and color that permeated his compositions and gave life to his canvases. Winter at the Library perfectly epitomizes Wiggins’s wintertime scenes that express the beauty of the city through a blustery veil of flurries. From the cheery hues of the bundled figures battling the weather to the pale blue tones of the snow, the poetic ambiance of the bustling city is captured in each and every brushstroke. Heavily influenced by the Impressionists of France, Wiggins sacrifices the details of the cityscape in favor of atmosphere, an aesthetic effect that evokes an emotional response to this American master's romanticized vision.
Born in New York in 1883, Wiggins was the son of Carleton Wiggins, an American painter in the Barbizon school. Under his father's tutelage, Wiggins began painting at an early age and was a frequent visitor to the Old Lyme Art Colony, the first artists' group in the nation to adopt impressionism. It was there that he began to develop his own unique style of impressionism, earning critical acclaim early in his career. By the age of twenty, Wiggins was the youngest artist to have a work in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He earned numerous awards, including membership in the National Academy of Design and the prestigious Norman Wait Harris Bronze Medal from the Art Institute of Chicago. He became best known for his iconic wintertime cityscapes, exhibiting a perceptive sensitivity to shifting environmental elements. Today, his works remain just as popular and are represented in important collections worldwide.