Lake Squam from Red Hill

Lake Squam from Red Hill

William Trost Richards

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Among the earliest contributors to the annual exhibitions of the American Society of Painters in Water Color, the Philadelphian Richards contributed significantly to raising the profile of the medium in the United States. The artist successfully wedded topographical precision and authority of design to a marvelous sense of light and atmospheric breadth, creating small-scale landscapes that are the nearest counterpart in watercolor to the paintings of the contemporaneous Hudson River School. The view of island-studded Lake Squam from Red Hill in New Hampshire was a well-worn tourist staple by the time Richards executed this radiant prospect at sunset. The picture hints at his admiration for the sky spectacles in oil of New York landscape painter Frederic Church.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.