Swedish-born Carlson was known for his impressionist landscape paintings, especially snowy scenes such as this one, executed outdoors. Having studied with Birge Harrison and Frank Vincent DuMond at the Art Students League in New York, Carlson was attracted to rural environments where he could sketch and paint in the plein air style. The painter became one of the leading landscape artists of the early twentieth century and founded the John Carlson School of Landscape Painting in Woodstock, New York.