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Autumn, Brandywine Valley, Pennsylvania

Bruce Crane

About 1910

The landscape painter Bruce Crane is best known for his autumnal scenes. Crane started his professional life as an architectural draftsman, painting only in his spare time. He eventually devoted himself entirely to painting, opening a studio in New York, and studying with the painter Alexander H. Wyant. Wyant encouraged Crane to work in the style of the Barbizon School, a group of French artists who advocated painting directly from nature. Crane traveled to France, where he spent a year and a half painting the landscape in and around the village of Grez-sur-Loing, about 45 miles south of Paris.


After returning to the United States in 1881, Crane soon began to receive recognition for painting the scenic landscapes of the Northeast, including the Adirondacks, Long Island, and Old Lyme, Connecticut. In this canvas, Crane depicts a glade along the banks of the Brandywine River in southeastern Pennsylvania.  

  • Titles Autumn, Brandywine Valley, Pennsylvania (Proper)
  • Artist Bruce Crane, American, 1857 - 1937
  • Medium oil on canvas
  • Dimensions 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm) frame: 21 3/8 × 25 3/8 × 1 1/2 in. (54.3 × 64.5 × 3.8 cm)
  • Credit Line Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Gift of Dr. and Mrs. David A. Skier, AFI.30.2006
  • Work Type painting
  • Classification Paintings