THESE MEMORABLE WORKS REVEAL THE MANY WAYS AMERICAN ARTISTS HAVE INTERPRETED THE MOODS, LANDSCAPES, AND TRADITIONS OF FALL
By Intelligent Collector Staff | October 6, 2026
For generations, American artists have found inspiration in the transformation of fall, capturing autumn not simply as a season but as a mood — sometimes exhilarating, sometimes contemplative, and always fleeting. The results are as varied as the country itself. In the 19th century, Hudson River School painters and their contemporaries found poetry in northeastern forests as the leaves began to fall, while later artists carried their easels west to capture golden aspens, Colorado mountains, and the banks of Kansas rivers. Modernists transformed autumn into bold experiments in color and form, while illustrators such as Norman Rockwell and LeRoy Neiman embraced the season’s sporting traditions. Together, these paintings demonstrate just how many ways there are to see fall. In honor of the changing season, Intelligent Collector revisits some memorable autumn-themed works from the Heritage Auctions archives.
Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait
Late Autumn, Long Lake, Hamilton Co., New York, Adirondacks, 1881
Born in England in 1819, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait moved to New York in 1850 and soon became known as one of America’s leading sporting artists, brilliantly memorializing the American landscape and wildlife. In 1881, at the height of his career, Tait painted this dramatic fall scene of Long Lake in the Adirondacks. According to the register of his works he kept over the course of his lifetime, the work was completed on January 25, 1881, for the Artists’ Fund Society, a New York charitable foundation that auctioned artwork to assist members and their families in the event of old age, illness, or death. Late Autumn, Long Lake, one of the largest and most extensive examples of Tait’s views of the Adirondacks, realized $200,000 in a December 2020 Heritage auction.
Walter Ufer
A Ride in Autumn
When the 38-year-old painter Walter Ufer first arrived in Taos in 1914, he finally discovered the subject that would bring him national acclaim: the Pueblo Indian. Ufer’s numerous paintings of the Taos Indian Jim Mirabal, his favorite model and close friend, demonstrate his method of blending psychological realism and inventive design. A Ride in Autumn, which unfolds against an intricately patterned backdrop of autumn’s yellow aspens, exemplifies Ufer’s portraits of Mirabal from the 1920s, presenting his subject as a contemporary Taos resident, dressed in store-bought boots, khaki pants, denim shirt, and cowboy hat, rather than as a stereotyped Indian in ceremonial garb. The work sold for $175,000 in a November 2016 Heritage auction.
Jervis McEntee
And the Year Smiles as It Draws Near Its Death, 1877
Jervis McEntee, a landscape painter of the Hudson River School active in the mid-19th century, is known for his intensely poetic and sensitive imagery. McEntee preferred what he described as the “quiet, pensive, restful side of nature, ” which can be felt in this scene of a woodland brook winding its way over rocks and between trees that are beginning to shed their leaves under a crisp blue autumn sky. In the work, which realized $100,000 in a November 2021 Heritage auction, McEntee makes sure the viewer feels the warmth of the sun together with a chill in the air — a reminder that the season is nearing its end. The painting’s title, And the Year Smiles as It Draws Near Its Death, is a paraphrased line from William Cullen Bryant’s poem October.
Sally Michel Avery
Blue Tree, 1963
Painted in 1963, Blue Tree reflects Sally Michel Avery’s enduring connection to the Catskills, where her family spent summers near Woodstock, New York. That landscape continually nourished the Averys’ shared artistic vision, including that of husband Milton and daughter March, both fellow artists. Here, Avery transforms the familiar autumn hillside into a strikingly modern composition: planes of vivid color, rhythmic brushwork, and the bold silhouette of a single red maple leaf anchoring the scene. Both abstract and intimate, Blue Tree celebrates the season’s intensity while affirming the artist’s independent mastery of form, color, and modernist clarity within the Avery legacy. The painting sold for $40,000 in a November 2025 Heritage auction.
Norman Rockwell
First Down (Four Sporting Boys: Football), preliminary Brown & Bigelow ‘Four Seasons’ calendar illustration, Fall 1951
This 1951 preliminary sketch for the autumn image in Norman Rockwell’s wildly popular “Four Seasons” calendar series for Brown & Bigelow takes on the sporting side of fall. Rockwell’s first installment in the “Four Seasons” series appeared on a 1950 Brown & Bigelow calendar, and he continued the series for another 16 years. This work, which features four young football players mid-tackle, sold for $68,750 in a November 2014 Heritage auction.
Thomas Moran
A Wood Scene, Autumn, 1865
Regarded as one of the foremost American landscape painters of the 19th century, Thomas Moran is celebrated for his grand, atmospheric depictions of the American West. Yet, some of his earlier works, such as A Wood Scene, Autumn, reflect a more intimate scenery, capturing the wooded forests and familiar streams near his childhood home outside Philadelphia. Employing the same reverence and intensity he would later bring to his majestic visions of the Grand Canyon, here Moran captures the quiet beauty of a northeastern stream, where sunlight filters through autumnal foliage. The painting, which Moran sold for $150 in the spring of 1865, realized $52,500 in a November 2025 Heritage auction.
Birger Sandzén
Early Fall, Smoky Hill River, Kansas, 1940
One of the most prolific Swedish-American artists in history, Birger Sandzén had a fondness for the Smoky Hill River, which flowed near his Lindsborg, Kansas, home. The body of water was a frequent motif in many of his pieces, including this 1940 painting depicting the banks of the river just as autumn is beginning. Sandzén’s Fauvist palette and strong brushwork energize the landscapes for which he is best known, and this impressive work is no exception. Early Fall, Smoky Hill River, Kansas sold for $93,750 in a May 2021 Heritage auction.
LeRoy Neiman
Autumn Hunt, 1970
Few artists captured the energy and spectacle of sporting life quite like LeRoy Neiman. With his energetic brushwork and vibrant palette, Neiman chronicled everything from championship boxing matches and Olympic competition to the pleasures and pastimes of leisure. In Autumn Hunt, which realized $45,000 in a May 2019 Heritage auction, he turns his attention to the traditional equestrian fox hunt, transforming the familiar sporting scene through vivid color and kinetic movement.
Gerard Curtis Delano
Afternoon in Autumn, Summit County, Colorado
Born in Massachusetts, Gerard Delano was fascinated by art at an early age. Having studied with illustrators Dean Cornwell, Harvey Dunn, and N.C. Wyeth at the Grand Central School of Art, Delano established himself as a successful commercial artist and illustrator in New York until 1919. His first trip to the West was to the mountains of Summit County, Colorado, in 1919 to work as a ranch hand. In 1920, he built his own studio at Cataract Creek in Summit County and later established a home and studio in Denver. Afternoon in Autumn, Summit County, Colorado, which sold for $35,000 in a December 2020 Heritage auction, is an exquisite rendering of the terrain that drew Delano west. Typical of his bold palette, the vibrant yellow hues illuminate the fall landscape while the saturated blues create the perfect setting for billowing white clouds above.
