William Trost Richards (1833-1905)

Painted at the end of the Civil War, William Trost Richards’ Autumn Woods brilliantly embodies the artist’s experiences in the mountain regions of the Adirondacks and Pennsylvania where he traveled in the mid-1860s. As seen in the present work, Richards' arduous attention to detail, perspective and vivid color in his landscapes awarded him election to the Pre-Raphaelites’ Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art.

Indeed, Autumn Woods reflects not only a proclivity for the Pre-Raphaelite movement but also reflects a country at peace with nature. Linda S. Ferber writes, "Like Albert Bierstadt's travels to the Far West, we can theorize that the Adirondack wilderness represented for these artists and their audience a vision of nature unspoiled, a promise of national renewal made even more urgent when weighed against the grim realities of the war." (In Search of a National Landscape: Willaim Trost Richards and the Artists' Adirondacks, 1850-1870, Blue Mountain Lake, New York, 2002, p. 23)