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George Luks
The Hitch Team (Horses in the Snow)
Painted in cool tones of deep blue and crisp white, The Hitch Team depicts two horses pulling a solitary driver up a steep, curving road. Thick swaths of heavy pigment boldly define the freshly fallen snow and the steam produced by a background chimney and tugboat. In 1912 Luks moved his home and studio to Washington Heights, a neighborhood near Highbridge Park. While the landscape in The Hitch Team is not precisely identified, it is likely based on the high vistas that overlook the Harlem River near the artist's studio. Shortly after it was painted, it was acquired by the Newark, New Jersey, lawyer Arthur Egner. In an article about Egner's collection, fellow Ashcan painter Guy Pène du Bois poignantly described this picture as both "fact and romance." |