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John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society

Catalogue Entry

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Additional Images
Oyster Boats, North River, 1879 (OP.301). Fig. 1. "Oyster Boats, North River," engraving from Twachtman, Oyster Boats, North River (OP.301), in William C. "The Younger Painters of America," Scribner's Monthly 20 (July 1880), Brownell 1880, p. 332.
Fig. 1. "Oyster Boats, North River," engraving from Twachtman, Oyster Boats, North River (OP.301), in William C. "The Younger Painters of America," Scribner's Monthly 20 (July 1880), Brownell 1880, p. 332.
Oyster Boats, North River, 1879 (OP.301). Fig. 2. Boat Stores, from James D. McCabe, Lights and Shadows of New York Life; Or the Sights and Sensations of the Great City (New York: National Publishing, 1872; facsimile, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), p. 836.
Fig. 2. Boat Stores, from James D. McCabe, Lights and Shadows of New York Life; Or the Sights and Sensations of the Great City (New York: National Publishing, 1872; facsimile, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), p. 836.
Oyster Boats, North River, 1879 (OP.301). Fig. 3. Dan Beard, “Opening of the Oyster Season,” Harper’s Weekly 26 (September 16, 1882), p. 584.
Fig. 3. Dan Beard, “Opening of the Oyster Season,” Harper’s Weekly 26 (September 16, 1882), p. 584.
Related Work
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Keywords
OP.301
Oyster Boats, North River
Alternate titles: 10th Street Dock, New York; [incorrectly titled] Gloucester Harbor; Dock at the Foot of Tenth Street; East River, New York; Old Oyster Boats; Old Oyster Market, West 10th Street; Oyster Boats; Oyster Sloops, New York Harbor; Tenth Street Dock
1879
Oil on canvas
16 x 24 in. (40.6 x 61 cm)
Signed, dated, and inscribed lower left: J. H. Twachtman, N.Y. 79
Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey, Bequest of Gilbert S. McClintock, Class of 1908 (y1959-69)
Provenance
(Babcock, by 1919);
to (Macbeth, 1922);
to Gilbert S. McClintock, Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, by 1931;
gift to present collection, 1959.
Exhibitions
1880 Chicago Inter-State probably
Art Hall, Chicago, Seventh Annual Fine Art Exhibition, Inter-State Industrial Exposition of Chicago, November 1880, no. 367, as Oyster Sloops, New York Harbor.
1881 Boston Art Club
Boston Art Club, Twenty-Third Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings, January 29–February 19, 1881, no. 10, as 10th Street Dock, New York.
1881 Society of American Artists
Kurtz Gallery, New York, Society of American Artists, Fourth Annual Exhibition, March 28–April 29, 1881, no. 61, as Tenth Street Dock.
1920 Dallas Art Association
Dallas Art Association, Adolphus Hotel, Second Annual Exhibition: American and European Art, April 7–21, 1920, no. 274, as Old Oyster Boats, lent by Babcock Gallery.
1922–II Macbeth
Macbeth Gallery, New York, Sixth Exhibition of Intimate Paintings, November 21–December 11, 1922, no. 85, as East River, New York, 1879, 16 x 24 in.
1937 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum, New York, Leaders of American Impressionism: Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, John H. Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir, October 17–November 28, 1937, no. 57, ill. in b/w (plate 7), as Oyster Boats, lent by Gilbert S. McClintock.
1939 Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, Presenting the Work of John H. Twachtman, American Painter, November 5–28, 1939, no. 14, as Oyster Boats, lent by Gilbert McClintock, Esq.
1968 Skylands Manor House
Skylands Manor House, Ringwood, New Jersey, Exhibition of American Art, May 12–26, 1968, no. 33, as Oyster Boats, North River.
1999 High Museum of Art
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, John Henry Twachtman: An American Impressionist, February 26–May 21, 2000. (Peters 1999–I), no. 3, pp. 36 ill. in color, 37, as Oyster Boats, North River. Traveled to: Cincinnati Art Museum, June 6–September 5, 1999; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, October 16, 1999–January 2, 2000.
Literature
Brownell 1880
Brownell, William C. "The Younger Painters of America." Scribner's Monthly 20 (July 1880), p. 332 ill. in b/w, as Oyster Boats, North River.
Art Journal 1881
"Art Notes." Art Journal 42 (1881), p. 157, as Tenth Street Dock.
Atlantic Monthly 1881
"The New York Art Season." Atlantic Monthly 48 (August 1881), p. 199, as Dock at the Foot of Tenth Street.
Gordon 1881
Gordon, Archibald. "The Impressionists." Studio and Musical Review 1 (July 1881), p. 79, as Tenth Street Dock.
New York Herald 1881
"Fine Arts: Fourth Annual Exhibition of the Society of American Artists—Third Notice." New York Herald, April 25, 1881, p. 6, as Tenth Street Dock.
New York Times 1881
"Some American Artists: Various Notable Pictures in the Exhibition." New York Times, April 15, 1881, p. 5, as Tenth Street Dock.
New-York Tribune 1881
"Society of American Artists." New-York Tribune, April 3, 1881, p. 7, as Tenth Street Dock.
Clark 1919
Clark, Eliot. "John Henry Twachtman." Art in America 7 (April 1919), p. 130.
Clark 1921
Clark, Eliot. "The Art of John Twachtman." International Studio 72 (January 1921), p. lxxvii ill. in b/w, as [incorrectly titled] Gloucester Harbor.
New York Times 1921–II
"World of Art: A Few of the Summer Exhibitions." New York Times, June 19, 1921, p. 45 ill. in b/w, as Old Oyster Market, West 10th Street.
Clark 1924
Clark, Eliot. John Twachtman. New York: privately printed, 1924, pp. opp. 16 ill. in b/w, 32, as Oyster Boats.
Tucker 1931
Tucker, Allen. John H. Twachtman. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1931, pp. 50–51 ill. in b/w, as Oyster Boats.
Hale 1957
Hale, John Douglass. "Life and Creative Development of John H. Twachtman." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1957. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1958, vol. 1, pp. 19–20, 178, 243, 245 ill. in b/w (fig. 45), 247–48, 264–65; vol. 2, p. 542 (catalogue A, no. 71), as Oyster Boats. (Hale concordance).
Art Museum, Princeton University 1961
Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University. Princeton, N.J.: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1961, p. 24, as Oyster Boats.
Peters 1995
Peters, Lisa N. "John Twachtman (1853–1902) and the American Scene in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Frontier within the Terrain of the Familiar." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 1995. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1996, vol. 1, p. 80; vol. 2, p. 615 ill. in b/w (fig. 60), as Oyster Boats, North River.
Peters 1999–I
Peters, Lisa N. John Henry Twachtman: An American Impressionist. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 High Museum of Art), pp. 35–36 ill. in color, 37, as Oyster Boats, North River.
Peters 2006–II
Peters, Lisa N. "Twachtman's Realist Art and the Aesthetic Liberation of Modern Life." In John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter", by Lisa N. Peters. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Spanierman), p. 40 ill. in col. (fig. 33), as Oyster Boats, North River.
Commentary

Inscribed and dated “N.Y. 79,” this painting was illustrated with its present title in an 1880 article in Scribner's Monthly by William C. Brownell (fig. 1).[1] The scene depicts the oyster boats and boat-shacks located at the foot of West Tenth Street on the North/Hudson River. The boat-shacks were hybrids, consisting of structures built on boats that from the front were decorated storefronts, serving as the stores constituting the city’s oyster market (fig. 2). At the back, as portrayed here, they were plain and unadorned. This side can be seen in an image included in The Opening of the Oyster Season, a part of a montage illustrated in Harper’s Weekly in September 1882 (fig. 3).[2] 

Twachtman probably created his image either from a boat on the water or from “the crooked pier at the foot of West Tenth Street,” a site mentioned in an 1879 article on the oyster market in Scribner’s Magazine. Charles H. Farnham's description of the locale in the article is well represented in Twachtman's scene. Farnham wrote that "the slip in the rear of the market" was an area "filled with pretty sloops" and observed: "The place is a net-work of masts and rigging, with here and there a basket hoisted by a tackle and a sail hanging in shaded folds."[3] In the work, Twachtman observed the scene from close to the water, and through the gradually receding pier, which cuts a diagonal line through the horizontal composition, he united the varied forms and angles of the boats and oyster shacks. 

Twachtman exhibited this painting as Tenth Street Dock in the 1881 annual of the Society of American Artists. It was one of his three paintings in the show. A critic for the New York Times took notice of it, commenting: 

Twachtman is a steady and consistent workman, whose landscapes and marines neither show advance nor retreat, contrary to the adage that in the arts there is no such thing as standing still. Perhaps the "Tenth Street Dock" is the most successful of the three here. It takes in enfilade the ends of oyster-barges that are moored in a basin at the foot of West Tenth-street; before them are at anchor several oyster-sloops of the picturesque Manhattan variety. The water is well rendered without deadness or niggling.[4] 

To William C. Brownell the painting revealed that Twachtman had “broken from the painty quality of his Munich art, developing greater control but without losing the spontaneity that had been a hallmark of the realism of Munich.”[5]

Twachtman must have felt this work to be among the most significant from this phase in his career because he exhibited it in 1880–81 in Boston and New York, and it was probably the work he showed as Oyster Sloops, New York Harbor at the Inter-State Industrial Exposition in Chicago in November 1880. 

[1] Brownell 1880.

[2] “Opening of the Oyster Season,” Harper’s Weekly 26 (September 16, 1882), p. 584.

[3] Charles H. Farnham, “A Day on the Docks,” Scribner’s Magazine 18 (May 1879), pp. 36, 39.

[4]  New York Times 1881.

[5]  Brownell 1880.

Selected Literature

From Clark 1919

We recall a picture dated "N.Y. '79," in which fishing boats, with sails furled, are lying at the docks, the upright repetition of the masts contrasted by angular wooden houses in the background. In technique it is a veritable "tour de force." The painter never realized his subject with greater command of brush. The arrangement, which does not suggest deliberate composing, is nevertheless nicely calculated, and characterizes the subject with picturesque and striking effect. When we reflect that at this time Manet was startling his Parisian audience by his frank realization of the intimate life about him, we must recognize that the realism of Twachtman must have appeared most blatant to the blinking eyes of his American contemporaries.