Born in Ashland, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, Trevitts studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and was awarded the prestigious Cresson Travel Fellowship. He studied with impressionists Robert Vonnoh and Daniel Garber. This view along the banks of the Schuylkill River in Reading depicts the Penn Street Viaduct leading to downtown through a screen of barren trees. In 1915, the year this work was painted, the bridge was only two years old.
