Catalogue Entry
Twachtman created two images each of most of his Niagara Falls subjects, and this painting can be paired with Horseshoe Falls, Niagara (OP.1201). Both have approximately the same measurements and depict the Canadian side of Horseshoe Falls. The two works are Twachtman’s only Niagara scenes that are definitely winter views, indicating that they derived from the artist's first trip to Niagara, which appears to have been in the winter of 1893–94. At the National Academy of Design in April–May 1894, he showed a wintry Niagara scene that was probably the latter. Shown with the title of Horseshoe Falls, Niagara—Afternoon, it was described by critics as a view of the cataract in winter. He again visited the falls in the summer of 1894. On either or both trips, he resided with Dr. Charles Cary (1852–1931) and his wife, the artist Evelyn Rumsey Cary (1855–1924), who had studied at the Art Students League and may have extended the invitation to Twachtman in the first place.
Whereas Twachtman appears to have identified Horseshoe Falls, Niagara as an afternoon scene in the Academy annual, Niagara in Winter was probably a product of his work in the late morning or at midday, a time when the falls were in the glow of overhead sunlight, encouraging him to use a palette of opalescent blue greens and tinted blues. What fascinated him in this subject was not its immensity, but instead the reflective properties of a bank of ice that, from his perspective, was almost as high as the falls itself, in which brilliant sunlight reflected from icicles and the partially frozen falls.
The painting was purchased from the artist’s estate sale by William T. Evans and included in the 1913 sale of his collection. Later it was acquired from Macbeth Gallery by an individual named W. J. Johnson, who lent it to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. The painting was consigned to Macbeth in 1927 and sold to the Addison Gallery of American Art, where it remained until 1944, when it was returned yet again to Macbeth, entering its present collection three years later.
From New American 1913
Among the fourteen examples of John H. Twachtman I may note, “Niagara in Winter” in which the artist did not attempt to express the vastness and majesty of the scene, but contented himself with rendering the lovely green and purple tones of the water with the surge and swirl below it, and the further contrast of these moving masses with the smoky lightness of the windblown mist and spray.
From de Kay 1918
A grander note, to be sure, was struck with his pictures about the falls of Niagara: but here again he was prudent: he did not try to embrace the panorama. Generally he takes a side view of part of the Falls from below, with the clouds of iridescent sunshot spray rising before the darker downpour of the river,the whole fantastic dance swaying above the huddle of waves in the caldron that steams below. “Niagara in Winter” shown at the Macbeth Galleries is such a scene. All is fluid, all motion, all color. It takes a bold artist to so much as attempt to place the falls of Niagara on canvas, and it must be an unusual genius who can achieve a picture that even in a measure can reflect the grandeur of the scene. One can think of very able, clever and successful painters today and in the past who are and were unable to paint water in motion so as to give satisfaction to the exacting. Apparently the rush of foam and the downward plunge of solid water. Twachtman had that gift as his Niagara pieces attempt [p. 76].
From Jackman 1928
In [Twachtman's] room at the Art Palace of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915, it was interesting to study his different methods of expression and to compare them with those of other artists who had painted the same or similar subjects. For example, his “Niagara” (Plate LXXII), where the entire canvas was less than two feet in height, brought to the observer much more of the spirit of that great cataract than the “Niagara Falls from the Canadian Shore,” many times its size, painted by F. E. Church, which could be studied in a near-by room. While the latter is hard, dry, and uninteresting in its excess of detail, the little Twachtman canvas is full of light, atmosphere, and spray--the kind that makes the air heavy and feels damp against one's cheek. A careful comparison of these two pictures shows plainly the emancipation of modern American painters.
- Museum website (ink.nbmaa.org)