November Sunset

Like many Tonalists, Murphy began his career working in the Hudson River School style. Principally self-taught, he was born in western New York and moved to Chicago as a teenager. The artist transitioned by the late 1870s to a more lyrical approach to landscape painting, characterized by softly defined forms, subtle contrasts between light and dark, and a distinct influence from the French Barbizon School. In fact, by the 1880s, Murphy was being dubbed “The American Corot.” He found success at the National Academy of Design by 1885 and traveled the following year to France, where he studied the work of the Barbizon artists.

After 1887, Murphy spent most of his time in Arkville, New York, in the southern Catskills, where he found spiritual refuge and inspiration in the picturesque landscape. Murphy’s November Sunset explores one of his most beloved themes: an intimate view of a serene waterway at twilight. The small canvas is essentially a limited, mono-chromatic exercise in shades of brown and gray, with only the slightest infusion of gold and orange in the sky and distant horizon.