Sketches, Maples
September 1917
Classification
Drawing
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Samuel Colman
Accession Number
1939-85-29-a
About this artwork
Research in Progress
Art Historical Context
Samuel Colman’s “Sketches, Maples,” created in September 1917, offers a quiet glimpse into the final years of an artist whose long career helped shape American landscape traditions. Born in 1832, Colman worked across painting, watercolor, and etching, often turning to nature for inspiration. This drawing, made when he was eighty-five, captures maple trees in what appears to be a series of quick studies, reflecting a lifetime of observing the changing seasons. As a work on paper now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the piece highlights the importance of drawings as both preparatory tool...