Charles Allan and Alice Beach Winter papers, circa 1890-1949, circa 1974

Charles Allan Winter (1869-1942) and Alice Beach Winter (1877-1970) were painters in East Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Charles Allan Winter was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy before spending over three years on a scholarship in Europe. Winter studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, France, and spent eight months in Rome, Italy, before returning to the United States to teach a portrait class at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, Missouri, in 1898. In 1901 he met Alice Mary Beach, who had begun studying at the same school, before moving to New York City that year and establishing a studio on 8 East 59th Street. The two were soon reunited in New York and married in 1904.

Alice Beach Winter was born in Green Ridge, Missouri. After moving to New York City in 1904 she studied at the Art Students League with John Twachtman, Joseph DeCamp, and George de Forest Brush, and shared her husband's studio on 59th Street. The couple worked for almost thirty years in New York as painters and illustrators, and collaborated with artists including John Sloan, Max Eastman, and Art Young, to establish the magazine The Masses. The illustrated socialist monthly published realist artwork that would come to be associated with the Ashcan school. Alice became the magazine's editor and was responsible for several of its covers. Charles painted landscapes and portraits, and was employed during the 1930s as a mural painter by the Works Progress Administration. Alice's illustrations and portraits of children provided income for the couple for many years, but she was also known for her large Impressionist landscapes.

Around 1910, the Winters began to visit Gloucester and Cape Ann, Massachusetts, eventually building a home and studio in East Gloucester and relocating there permanently in 1931. They were visited often by friends including artists Paul Cornoyer, Stuart Davis, Agnes Richmond, Paul Tietjens, John Sloan, and others.