Returning in 1924 from New York, Brigante settled in the Hollywood hills, at that time still a rural area. He often went to nearby Elysian Park to draw and paint. Brigante’s art after his New York visit exhibits a more sophisticated treatment of nature, a more facile use of the watercolor medium, and a less-radical approach to abstraction. He did not allow his knowledge of modernism to distract him from conveying the spirit of a scene. In these three watercolors, completed shortly after his return, he described the essence of natural growth by using short brush strokes and arcing lines for twisted trunks and limbs. He painted the scene in bright, warm peaches, pinks, and roses and complementary purples and greens in thin, delicate washes shimmering with light. The pigments were applied somewhat dryly on a rough paper so that bits of it are exposed. In these respects Brigante followed the practices of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), whom he admired. One of these watercolors may have been exhibited during the 1920s in New York at the New Gallery.

From the exhibition Stanton Macdonald-Wright and His Circle at LACMA January 29-May 28, 2003 This view of Elysian Park, located in the Hollywood hills near downtown Los Angeles, contains colors similar to those in the Synchromist color scale used by Stanton Macdonald-Wright. Macdonald-Wright taught Nick Brigante at the Chouinard School of Art in Los Angeles around 1921 - 1923. Brigante also studied at the Art Students League of Los Angeles, where he pursued his interests in classical art, Chinese landscape, and oriental philosophy. Macdonald-Wright, Edouard Vysekal (see The Herwigs), and Brigante exhibited their work with other modernist painters at the first exhibition of the Group of Independent Artists of Los Angeles in February 1923.