The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Oil painting of a grey scene of a park with snow-covered hills and bare, scraggly trees in the foreground and a hazy cityscape in the background. At the center is a frozen lake on which people skate, some wearing clothing that provides pops of yellow and orange.

The Park-Winter

1923

Leon Kroll

(American, 1884–1974)
America
oil on canvas
Unframed: 91.5 x 122 cm (36 x 48 1/16 in.); Framed: 109.2 x 139.7 x 7.6 cm (43 x 55 x 3 in.)
Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection 1923.1339
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

A fellow artist described Leon Kroll as having "the eye of a hawk and the heart of a dove."

Description

During the 1920s, Kroll earned a great deal of success painting scenes of everyday urban life. In this example, he depicted ice skaters on a pond in snow-covered Central Park, with a looming skyline of Manhattan apartment buildings in the background.
  • Leon Kroll, 1923
  • Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of an Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 until Today at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: [Printed by the Artcraft Printing Co.], 1937. Mentioned: p. 30, no. 115
    "Comment." The Arts. 3:4 (April, 1923). pp. 290-293. Reproduced: p. 293
    Milliken, William M. "The Third Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. 10:6 (June 1923). pp. 102-107, 109-112, 119. Reproduced: p. 102; Mentioned:pp. 103-104
    Karr, Benjamin. "Noted Kroll Painting Acquired by Museum." The Cleveland Leader, 15 July 1923.
    "'The Park-Winter,' by Leon Kroll." Christian Science Monitor, 21 July 1923. Reproduced
    Milliken, William M. "The Park-Winter by Leon Kroll." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art. 10:8 (October, 1923). pp. 141-143. Mentioned: pp. 141-143
    "In Holiday Show of Pictures." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), November, 24 1939. Reproduced: p. 11
    Kroll, Leon. Leon Kroll. New York: American Artists Group, 1946. Reproduced: Front cover
    Saarinen, Aline B. "Art Storm Breaks on Dallas: Group Protests Showing of Work by Artists Called 'Left.'" The New York Times, February 12, 1956. Mentioned: p. X 15
    Grosser, Maurice. Critic's Eye. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962. Mentioned: p. 166
    Chong, Alan. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. Reproduced: p. 122
    Carraro, Francine. "Seeing Red: the Dallas Museum in the McCarthy Era." Suspended License: Censorship and the Visual Arts, ed. Elizabeth C. Childs. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997. pp. 235-258. Reproduced: p. 252
  • Art of the Twenties: American Painting at the Crossroads. Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI (organizer) (November 16, 1978-January 21, 1979).
    Flint, MI, Flint Institute of Arts, Art of the Twenties: American Painting at the Crossroads (16 November 1978-21 January 1979), cat. no. 25, illus. p. 37.
    Exhibition of History and Art of the Olympic Games. Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México, Lomas de Santa Fe, Ciudad de México, Mexico (September 12-November 30, 1968).
    Mexico City, XIX Olympiad, Exhibition of History and Art of the Olympic Games (12 September-30 November 1968)
    New York, The National Museum of Sport Inc., Premiere Exhibition (Mid-February-Mid-April, 1968)
    Davenport, Iowa, Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, Sports and Recreation Panorama (4 April-4 May 1959), cat. no. 53, illus. p. 6, listed p. 8.
    Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Sport in Art: From American Collections Assembled for an Olympic Year (15 November-15 December, 1955); traveled to Washington, D. C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, (5-30 January, 1956); to Louisville, J. B. Speed Art Museum, (14 February-10 March, 1956); to Dallas, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (25 March-20 April, 1956); to Denver, Denver Art Museum (5-30 May, 1956); San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, (28 July-26 August 1956); intended for Melbourne, Australia, Olympic Games, but this stop was cancelled; cat. no. 66, not illus.
    New York, The Century Club, Life in New York City (1954)
    The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).
    New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The is Our City: An Exhibition of Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, & Prints (11 March-13 April, 1941), cat. no. 43, not illus.
    Paris, Musée du Jeu de Paume, Trois Siecles d'Art aux Etats-Unis (May-July 1938), cat. no. 106, p. 42, not illus.
    Worcester, MA, Worcester Art Museum, Leon Kroll (1-19 December 1937), cat. no. 8.
    Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 Until Today. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-October 4, 1937).
    Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, An Exhibition of American Painting from 1860 Until Today at The Cleveland Museum of Art (23 June-4 October 1937), cat. no. 115, listed p. 30.
    Pittsburgh, Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, Leon Kroll Exhibition of Paintings (25 April-2 June 1935), cat. no. 19, not illus.
    Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Third Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting (7 June-8 July 1923), see The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art (June, 1923), illus. inside cover, pp. 103-113.
    New York, National Academy of the Arts, Spring Exhibition (1923), see References: The Arts for review; cat. no. 2.
  • {{cite web|title=The Park-Winter|url=false|author=Leon Kroll|year=1923|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1923.1339