Born in Aberdeen, Hunter spent much of his early career painting the Scottish scenery, which he exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Society of British Artists, Glasgow Institute, and local shows in Dundee and Inverness. But in 1886, he left his studio in Aberdeen for good, heading south: first to London, then to Newlyn, traveling often to France, Holland and Italy.

Loch Avon (or Loch A'an) was considered one of the most inaccessible of Scottish lochs, a remote spot where grim guardians — the flat-topped Shelter Crag and snowy Ben Macdhui — preside over the dark depths of the frigid waters. A correspondent of The Daily News described it in 1871:

… among the fearful crags lies the lonely Loch A'an in its gloomy majestic grandeur. The mountain sides are rifled with deep corries frowning horrible with perpendicular precipices. Up there in the dusky heart of one of the corries is a great mass of snow, like a pearl in the bosom of a Moorish beauty.

Seldom visited by the sun, the snows covering the mountains lasted throughout the year, giving this picture its title: The Lasting Snow. Probably ours, or a smaller version of it, was shown in 1881 at the Inverness Art Exhibition, where it was noticed by the Northern Chronicle: 'The time is evidently early spring, and the snow covers thickly but not entirely the tops of the hills.' The Lasting Snow belonged to the artist until his death, when his remaining pictures were given to his great-nephew (also called George Sherwood Hunter).