Disability Pride Month is celebrated every July to commemorate the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was signed into law on July 26, 1990. This month, we focus on some of the depictions and lived experiences of people with disabilities represented inTMA’s collection.

Hendrik Avercamp was a nonspeaking and probably deaf artist known as the “mute of Kampen,” a city northeast of Amsterdam. He pioneered the Dutch genre of animated winter scenes depicting people from all walks of life intermingling on the ice together, a reflection of the optimism and emerging national identity in Holland as it fought for its independence from Spain in the early seventeenth century.

Like many of Avercamp’s paintings, Winter Scene on a Canal features a low horizon line where land blends into heavy skies, emphasizing the flatness of the Dutch landscape. He included many amusing details, from the man relieving himself behind a tree (the outhouse is already occupied) to distant skaters who have fallen on the ice, conveying a sense of what must have been his keen eye for humorous anecdotes.

Hendrik Avercamp (1585–1634), Winter Scene on a Canal. Oil on wood panel, about 1615. 18 7/8 x 37 5/8 in. (47.9 x 95.6 cm). Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1951.402. On view in Gallery 22.