Monday, December 15, 2025 – THE ARTISTIC BEAUTY OF SNOW IN NEW YORK
SNOW SCENES
FROM
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2025
ISSUE #1592
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
JOYOUS CHANUKAH WISHES TO ALL
OUR HEARTS ARE SADDENED BY THE TRAGEDY AT BONDI BEACH, AUSTRALIA. OUR SUPPORT TO ALL THOSE TOUCHED BY THIS HORRIBLE DEATH.
Johann Adam Boller, Hanukkah Lamp, Frankfurt am Main (Germany), 1706–32, silver: cast, filigree, cloisonné enamel, engraved, traced, punched, and parcel-gilt; enamel inlays on copper alloy, 17 3/8 × 14 1/8 × 7 1/8 in. (44.1 × 35.9 × 18.1 cm). The Jewish Museum, New York. Gift of Frieda Schiff Warburg, S 563
WINTER SCENES FROM
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
Playing in the snow in Tompkins Square Park
Is this painting from 1934 or 2013? Tompkins Square Park and the colorful row of buildings bordering it on East 10th Street have barely changed in 89 years in Saul Kovner’s “Tompkins Park, N.Y. City.”
Kovner was a Russia-born painter; like so many other struggling artists, he worked for the New Deal’s Public Works of Art Project in the 1930s.
“The PWAP encouraged their commissioned artists to capture ‘the American Scene,’ and in this painting Kovner conveys strong messages of community spirit and American values,” states the web site for the Smithsonian Institution, which owns this painting.
“Children and adults enjoy winter in the park, building snowmen and playing with sleds; the presence of the Stars and Stripes in the center of the work places this as a uniquely American scene.”
A winter twilight in the snow on 57th Street
This is 57th Street in 1902, painted by Robert Henri, whose Ashcan School work depicted a moody New York in all of its grit and glory.
Could the cross street with the elevated train be Sixth Avenue? It would have been close to the Art Students League, where Henri taught.
Blue snow on the Battery in wintertime
No one paints New York City in the winter, in all of its blue and white harshness and beauty, quite like George Bellows.
Looking at “Blue Snow, the Battery,” from 1910, you can just feel the chill coming off New York Harbor, and how much colder it must be for the men standing in those shadows
You can practically feel the biting wind and snow in this raw 1911 New York winter street scene
There’s a lot of white in this depiction of a blustery winter day in the New York City of 1911: white snow on the street, stoops, and light poles; white-gray skies filling with factory smoke (or smoke from ship smokestacks?) across a grayish river.
Then there’s the violent white brushstrokes of howling wind against the red brick buildings. The wind is painted so viscerally, you can almost feel the icy snow and biting cold (and sympathize with the woman shielding her face in her coat, holding on to her hat).
“City Snow Scene” is an early work of Stuart Davis, a Pennsylvania native born in 1892 who is much better known as a Modernist painter. As a 17-year-old launching a career in New York, he fell under the thrall of early 20th century Ashcan artists and their gritty depictions of urban life.
The painting was auctioned by in 2012 by Christie’s, which had this to say about it: “Through bravura brushwork and a simplified muted palette, Davis succeeds in rendering a dreary winter’s day in lower Manhattan.”
“With a generous application of whites, Davis works up the surfaces to portray the texture of the snow which is juxtaposed with the more carefully applied reds he employs to develop the architecture in the background,” per Christie’s website.
“Broad, heavily applied strokes of black are the only device Davis employs to represent the pedestrians with the exception of a few simple touches of orange that delineate the faces of the primary figures in the foreground.”
It’s how a New York City winter used to be—and is once again in winter 2025
The Cordova family is facing an incredibly difficult time after losing their home in a fire on December 1st. Thankfully, no one was home, and their cat, Nemo, escaped safely. However, everything inside the house was destroyed, leaving them with nothing. They now need help to replace essential items like clothing, shoes, warm coats, personal hygiene products, and prescriptions that were lost.
This is a heartbreaking situation, and any support you can offer will make a real difference. Your contribution will go directly toward helping Miriam and Armando as they begin to rebuild their lives. Thank you for considering this.
Best regards,
ON DISPLAY AT COLER
ART BY THE LATE RESIDENT ARTIST YVONNE SMITH
PHOTO BY JUDITH BERDY
CREDITS
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Copyright © 2025 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
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