Francis Guy

Francis Guy (1760–1820), Winter Scene in Brooklyn, 1820
Oil on canvas, 58 × 106 in. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. 2006.98.

Francis Guy found artistic inspiration in the daily activity of his Brooklyn neighborhood. Here, he depicted specific buildings, people, and even animals as seen from the window of his second-floor residence. Guy paid close attention to the diversity of the neighborhood and how each person contributed to the character of the place, whether socializing, slipping on ice, or cutting wood. A large concentration of Brooklyn’s free African American population lived near this very intersection, where Fulton and James Streets meet Front Street, now located under the Brooklyn Bridge.