The late John F. Gale of Cambridge, a real estate entrepreneur, grew up in the small rural Vermont town of Plainfield and he never lost his love for the Northeast Kingdom.

Nostalgia for that area, which was described in 2006 by the National Geographic Society as “the most desirable place to visit in this country and the ninth most desirable place to visit in the world,” led Gale to start collecting paintings of Vermont’s snow-covered mountains and other wintry scenes by Aldro Thompson Hibbard (1886-1972), the Cape Ann artist who wintered in Vermont and became known as “the painter of New England winters.”