Norwegian-born American painter celebrated for his vibrant depictions of cityscapes, coastlines, and winter landscapes that blend impressionist light with structural precision.
Lie’s oils display richly layered pigment and vibrant tonality, built through successive glazes that produce depth and luminosity. His winter scenes often exhibit delicate impasto in the snow’s highlights and finely preserved craquelure consistent with early twentieth-century materials. The canvas surfaces remain stable, reflecting the artist’s careful preparation and the enduring vitality of his palette.
A luminous winter landscape, First Thaw captures the fleeting moment when snow yields to sunlight, and whispers of spring stir beneath their frozen blanket. Jonas Lie renders the transition with a musician’s rhythm and a philosopher’s calm, transforming paint into melody. The composition’s harmony of blues, whites, and ochres evokes the thaw of both nature and spirit—each brushstroke alive with motion and clarity. Originally from the Severance Milliken Estate in Cleveland, First Thaw traveled to Richard Love Galleries for the 1996 exhibition American Winter Scenes of Yesteryear before appearing in the landmark 2006 retrospective of Lie’s work at Spanierman Gallery, New York. The painting bridges the artist’s Norwegian heritage and his American identity, offering a vision of renewal that reflects Lie’s lifelong dialogue between memory, place, and emotion.
