Spring Highlights

The rugged Teton Range of Wyoming rises across this canvas, painted by Conrad Schwiering, an artist who knew these peaks better than almost anyone. Born in 1916, he gave up a possible career in law to chase his love of the American West, eventually settling in Jackson Hole where the mountains sat right outside his door. He liked to paint outdoors, watching how sunlight shifted across the slopes from season to season, and that hard-won knowledge shows in the way bright light glints off the snowy summits while the green meadows glow below.

Schwiering's brushwork here is loose and full of energy, laying down thick strokes that hint at detail without fussing over every leaf. Wildflowers dot the foreground, and a weathered fallen log rests among them, small anchors that draw your gaze forward before it climbs toward the sharp peaks in the distance. Fittingly nicknamed the "Painter of the Tetons," Schwiering created work like this as an honest thank-you to a landscape he clearly never grew tired of. The painting captures a plain and lovely truth: spring is arriving in the high country.