The Passing Storm, Shenandoah Valley

Accession number: 1996.172.2, Lora Robins Collection of Virginia Art

As late as the 1920s, painters still looked to find bucolic scenery in the Valley. Here Alexis Fournier (1865–1948) shows that nature is always renewing itself, and in turn the spirit of those who depend upon the land for their well being. Fournier was a Minnesota painter who in 1893 he had traveled to Paris for training. Working on site in the Valley, probably in Rockingham County or further north, he adapted French Impressionism to an idyllic setting.

What's related:

View more landscape paintings in the VHS's online exhibition, The Virginia Landscape

Image rights owned by the Virginia Historical Society. Rights and reproductions