A JOURNEY ACROSS THE NATION’S VARIED LANDSCAPES REVEALS THE SEASON IN ALL ITS GLORY
By Rhonda Reinhart | March 17, 2026
Spring has long held a special appeal for American artists. As winter recedes and color returns to the landscape, painters across the country find fresh subject matter in blooming trees, open farmland, and coastal towns shaking off the cold. For 20th-century artists in particular, spring offered a chance to document a nation in motion. From New England gardens to New Mexico mesas, artists interpreted the season through their own regional lenses. Below, we travel from the Northeast to the Southwest through works that trace the season’s arrival across the country and celebrate America at its most hopeful.
Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922)
Spring Twilight, Bluebonnets, 1917
Like other Impressionists, Texas native Julian Onderdonk was fascinated by the atmospheric conditions found during different seasons and times of day, particularly in the areas surrounding his hometown of San Antonio. In his paintings, he combined Impressionism and Tonalism with his own special brand of Realism to immortalize the land he loved so much. He once wrote: “San Antonio offers an inexhaustible field for the artist. Nowhere else are the atmospheric effects more varied and more beautiful. One never tires of watching them. Nowhere else is there such a wealth of color. In the spring, when the wild flowers are in bloom, it is riotous: every tint, every hue, every shade is present in the most lavish profusion…” Onderdonk’s Spring Twilight, Bluebonnets from 1917 is a prime example of his knack for capturing the beauty and grandeur of the Texas landscape. The oil-on-board work realized $75,000 in an October 2022 Heritage auction.
Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973)
Hill Country in Spring, 1951
Much like Julian Onderdonk, Porfirio Salinas’ brilliance lay in his ability to capture the natural splendor of rural Texas, especially in the springtime, when the state’s many species of flowers are in full bloom. Born to tenant farmers in Bastrop, Texas, in 1911, Salinas was one of the first Mexican American artists to gain national fame. His vibrant landscapes even earned him a fan in President Lyndon B. Johnson. Salinas’ Hill Country in Spring from 1951 sold for $52,500 in a November 2025 Heritage auction.
Wolf Kahn (1927-2020)
The Randall Davey Orchard in Spring, 1988
Known for his vivid landscapes, Wolf Kahn enjoyed pushing color to its limits. He spent a great deal of his life traveling and painting the varied landscapes across America, like The Randall Davey Orchard in Spring, a vibrant New Mexico scene from 1988. The oil-on-canvas work, which realized $30,000 in a May 2022 Heritage auction, brings to mind this John Updike-penned passage from the 2003 book Wolf Kahn’s America: An Artist’s Travels: “Wolf Kahn brings the hot, pure color of Abstract Expressionism to an idea of landscape that is tranquil, reflective, and (as his titles tell us) witty. He scans what is before him for patterns, for broad and sometimes astonishing contrasts. He brings back from his survey of nature colors — magentas, purples, orange-pinks — that must be seen to be believed. We do believe them; his images keep a sense of place and moment, though what strikes us first is their abstract gorgeousness. Gorgeous, but they do not leave the earth.”
Victor Higgins (1884-1949)
Lower Hondo, Spring, circa 1940
Victor Higgins was a member of the Taos Society of Artists, located in northern New Mexico in the early years of the 20th century, and was one of its most modernist painters. An Indiana native, the artist went west seeking the natural beauty of the Southwest and found himself captivated by the region’s brilliant light and wide range of color. Although his early New Mexico work is firmly grounded in traditional realism, Higgins steadily moved away from this approach throughout his career. By the time of his death in 1949, his small landscapes — like the circa-1940 work Lower Hondo, Spring, which realized $131,250 in a May 2016 Heritage auction — were abstract expressions of land, color, and sky rather than literal interpretations of the surrounding terrain.
Charles Wysocki (1928-2002)
Vermont Springtime
Charles Wysocki devoted his career to depicting the charm and optimism of early American life. Much like the work of Grandma Moses, his scenes of small towns, country fairs, and simple pleasures celebrate a vision of America that feels both nostalgic and enduring. Deeply inspired by 19th-century New England, Wysocki painted not with strict historical accuracy but with affectionate idealism. His scenes are imaginative re-creations and visual love letters to small-town life and seasonal traditions. In Vermont Springtime, which sold for $37,500 in a May 2022 Heritage auction, he captures an idyllic New England spring, complete with green grass, budding trees, and colorful blooms aplenty.
Eric Sloane (1905-1985)
Connecticut Spring
Like many of his paintings, Eric Sloane’s Connecticut Spring, which sold for $42,500 in a November 2018 Heritage auction, devotes much of its canvas to the clouds in the sky. A longtime observer of clouds and weather patterns, Sloane even coined the word “cloudscapes” for his works dedicated entirely to billowy cloud formations. He also painted a massive cloud-centric mural for the 1976 opening of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
Hugh Bolton Jones (1848-1927)
Springtime in Old Lyme, Connecticut
Unlike Eric Sloane’s aforementioned Connecticut scene, which captures the moodier, more dramatic feel of early spring, Hugh Bolton Jones’ Springtime in Old Lyme, Connecticut takes a brighter approach, its calm sky, verdant grounds, and soaring green trees suggesting a moment later in the season. Jones wasn’t the only artist lured by Old Lyme. The small coastal town was once home to the most famous Impressionist colony in America. Springtime in Old Lyme, Connecticut realized $14,000 in a May 2012 Heritage auction.
