Winter Steps
/Henry M. Gasser
Not dated
American, 1909-1981
Watercolor on paper
Florida Southern College Permanent Collection
A blistery night. A snow-blasted hillside. A dark and cloudy sky, and a lone winter-coat-bundled figure trudging through the snow-covered street. The title of the painting, Winter Steps, hints at the next stage of the journey that is presumably to follow for this figure in the moments after this one, which remains forever frozen in time. Where is this taking place? Is this an American town or somewhere else entirely? What time is it? Where is the figure headed and who might the figure be? Of all the works in this exhibition, this painting looks perhaps most like a storybook illustration — albeit a storybook illustration whose narrative has been torn from it.