Gateway to North Carolina

A prolific artist in many media—oil, watercolor, etching, and lithography—Chauncey Ryder loved mountains. He bought a hilltop property in New Hampshire and, sometime about 1920, he explored the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

Ryder defies easy categorization and is often labeled a Tonalist due to his canvases marked by haziness and soft-edged forms. Because he tended to generalize details, it is difficult to pinpoint the precise locations represented in his paintings. Indicative of his lack of concern for specificity, he once said: “I paint by feeling.” A clear green tone was a particular hallmark of his palette, leading commentators to cite “Ryder’s greens.”