Indian Summer

J. Francis Murphy, born Oswego, NY 1853-died New York City 1921 · 1903

J. Francis Murphy created intimate landscape scenes that were painstakingly produced. His process required applying one overall wash of paint to the canvas while he was outside so that he could capture the dominant colors of the landscape. He would let the canvas dry for up to a year before completing the painting in his studio. With its spindly trees, soft yellow-green fields and sweeping clouds, Indian Summer conjures the hazy quality of a memory or dream. (Burke, “J. Francis Murphy,” American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. III, 1980)