Late Afternoon, New York, Winter

Late winter afternoon light in New York—cold, golden, and brief—gave Hassam one of his most characteristic urban moods, and this 1900 canvas at the Brooklyn Museum captures that particular quality of winter sun low on the city's streets. The painting belongs to his consistent documentation of New York City's seasonal character, in which winter offered the most dramatically beautiful light—long shadows, warm color in the sky, cold blue in the shadows—while also presenting the harshest conditions for outdoor observation. The Brooklyn Museum holds several major Hassam New York works.

The late afternoon winter light is rendered through the warm golden tones of the sun still catching the upper stories of buildings contrasted against the cold blue-grey shadows of the streets below—a tonal opposition Hassam orchestrated with particular skill in his winter urban canvases. The few figures on the street are silhouetted against the pale sky, their forms abbreviated into gestural marks.