A sun-dappled scene of middle-class leisure, Holiday on the Hudson is an atypical work by Luks, who more often turned to gritty tenement subjects for inspiration. Throughout his career, the painter fashioned himself as a brash, profane, and hard-drinking antagonist to New York’s genteel art-world establishment. The museum purchased this work just four months before the artist was beaten to death in the wake of a speakeasy argument.