LANDSCAPE PAINTER'S WAGON
BY ALDEN BRYAN
The horse-drawn studio you see here was designed and built by Alden Bryan in 1939 for painting on cold days. It was originally mounted on a steerable sugaring sled. It is heated by a pot bellied stove. One or two horses were hitched to the sled and it was dragged up into the woods near Bryan’s house.
It was here that Bryan would place the sled near to where he intended to paint. Often he would venture out to find locations that best suited him as a location to paint from. Other times when the weather was real lousy, he would fire up the wood stove and paint from inside.
The restoration of the plein air landscape wagon was done in 2006 by the Shaw family and Sarah Orton Glickman to honor the landscape painters of Jeffersonville past and present. And it is now displayed on wheels, as a curiosity, next to the Visions of Vermont gallery.