David Johnson (1827-1908)
View near Greenwich, Connecticut, 1878
Oil on board, 13 7/8 x 19 3/4”
Signed and dated lower right

A picturesque fishing scene is marred by a train in the distance. Did the artist realize that the railroad would shortly end fishing as an occupation here and all but destroy this tranquil place? The artists who followed him to the area in the 1890s were confronted by more telling evidence than that hinted at in his painting.

Johnson, a late Hudson River School artist, painted at least six Greenwich and Cos Cob scenes between 1878 and 1889. He was in the area as early as 1869, when he made a view of a Greenwich estate owned at the time by the infamous "Boss" Tweed.