Guy Carleton Wiggins was devoted to the depiction of both rural and urban landscape and he became especially well known for winter scenes. He was the second generation of a family of painters; his father, Carleton Wiggins, was one of the first members of the artists’ colony in Old Lyme, Connecticut. The younger Wiggins also spent time in Old Lyme, where Snow-Crowned Hills was painted. Although the broken brushstrokes of the composition clearly derive their inspiration from the Impressionists, the unspoiled, uninhabited wintry landscape portrayed is uniquely American.