This painting is a typical example of Enser’s work, as it uses a vibrant color palette and a naturalistic painting style to portray a landscape scene. The particular vantage point depicted is unidentified, but is most likely the back garden of 12 Summit Road atop Follen Hill, looking northeast across the valley of Massachusetts Avenue and the Arlington Great Meadows to Whipple Hill in the distance.
John Enser lived for more than a decade in the 1930s and early 1940s in the Summit Road home of his friends and fellow artists Hermann Dudley Murphy and Nelly Littlehale Murphy. Enser and the Murphys maintained their studios in the spacious home. The contrast between the manicured lawn in the foreground and the rolling hills in the background can be seen as a nod to Lexington’s past as a rural, agricultural community as well as its present position as a prosperous suburb of Boston.
This painting was donated to Cary Memorial Library by Paul Kossey.