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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
Lower Falls, Yellowstone, ca. 1895 (OP.1303). Fig. 1. Lower Falls of the Yellowstone, from just west of Lookout Point, June 2022
Fig. 1. Lower Falls of the Yellowstone, from just west of Lookout Point, June 2022
Image: Lisa N. Peters
Related Work
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Keywords
OP.1303
Lower Falls, Yellowstone
Alternate titles: Nevada Falls, Yellowstone; Water Fall, Yellowstone Park; Waterfall, Yellowstone Park
ca. 1895
Oil on canvas
30 x 30 in. (76.2 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman–
Private collection
Provenance
Hugo Reisinger, by 1910;
to (American Art Galleries, New York, Reisinger sale, January 18–20, 1916, lot 24, as Water Fall, Yellowstone Park);
(Knoedler);
to City Art Museum, St. Louis, 1916–21;
(Vose);
to Edwin Coupland Shaw, Akron, Ohio, 1922;
to (Macbeth, 1930);
to Mr. Thomas Cochran for the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, 1930);
through (Macbeth);
to Mrs. Francis M. Weld, by 1952;
to Denver Art Museum, 1954;
to Whitney Museum of American Art, New York;
to (Knoedler);
William Marshall Fuller, by 1978;
to private collection;
to present collection, by 1987.
Exhibitions
1910 Royal Academy of Art in Berlin
Königliche Akdemie der Künste zu Berlin, Austellung Amerikanischer Kunst, March 1910, as Water Fall, Yellowstone Park, lent by Hugo Reisinger, New York.
1922 Detroit Institute of Arts probably
Detroit Institute of Arts, Loan Exhibition of Paintings Selected from the Collection of Messrs. R. C. and N. M. Vose of Boston, February 1922, no. 50, as Nevada Falls, Yellowstone.
1936 Pacific International Exposition
Palace of Fine Art, Balboa Park, San Diego, Pacific International Exposition, February 12–September 9, 1936, no. 337, as Water Fall, Yellowstone Park, lent by Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts.
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. 2, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
1942–I Babcock
Babcock Galleries, New York, Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels by John H. Twachtman, February 9–28, 1942, no. 12, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
1950 Milch
Milch Galleries, New York, Special Exhibition of American Paintings in Honor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Diamond Jubilee, December 4–30, 1950, no. 18, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
1952 Century Association
Century Association, New York, Exhibition of Paintings by Abbott Thayer and John H. Twachtman, March 5–May 4, 1952, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone, lent by Mrs. Francis M. Weld.
1978 Amon Carter Museum of Western Art
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, Texas, American Impressionist and Realist Paintings and Drawings from the William Marshall Fuller Collection, May 25–July 16, 1978, pp. 9, 21 ill. in color, 53 ill. in b/w, Fig. 58, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
Literature
American Art Galleries 1916
Private Collection of the Late Hugo Reisinger. Auction catalogue, January 18–20, 1916. New York: American Art Galleries, 1916, lot 24 ill. in b/w, as Water Fall, Yellowstone Park.
Downes 1920
Downes, William Howe. "The City Art Museum of St. Louis: Impressions of a Traveling Art Critic." The American Magazine of Art 11 (October 1920), p. 424 ill. in b/w, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
St. Louis Star and Times 1921
"News of the St. Louis Art World: Painting by J. H. Twachtman." St. Louis Star and Times, May 3, 1921, p. 18, as Waterfall, Yellowstone Park.
Andrews 1936
Andrews, Julia Gethmann. "San Diego's Second Year." American Magazine of Art 29 (June 1936), p. 390 ill. in b/w, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
Cheney 1941
Cheney, Sheldon. The Story of Modern Art. New York: Viking, 1941, p. 433 ill. in b/w, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
Lane 1942
Lane, James W. "Twachtman at His Best." Artnews 41 (March 1–14, 1942), p. 29, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
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. 2, p. 581 (catalogue A, no. 780\), as Waterfall, Yellowstone Park. (Hale concordance).
Trenton and Hassrick 1983
Trenton, Patricia, and Peter Hassrick. The Rocky Mountains: A Vision for Artists in the Nineteenth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1983, pp. 340, 339 ill. in b/w, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
Faxon, Berman, and Reynolds 1996
Faxon, Susan C., Avis Berman, and Jock Reynolds. Addison Gallery of American Art: 65 Years—A Selective Catalogue. Andover, Mass.: Addison Gallery of American Art, 1996, p. 60, as Lower Falls, Yellowstone.
Commentary

Twachtman’s view in this painting is from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone looking toward the Lower Falls, which drops 308-feet. His vantage point was from west of Lookout Point (fig. 1), from which Thomas Moran depicted his impressive The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 1872 (Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.). Using a square canvas, Twachtman created a more modern conception than that of his contemporaries, organizing the space with a series of zigzags, created by the canyon walls and the sinuous line of the river.

This painting was lent by the merchant and art collector Hugo Reisinger (1856–1914) to the Berlin Royal Academy in 1910, a show in which Reisinger sought to “prove to German artists and art lovers that the modern American school of painting is the peer of any of its European contemporaries.”[1] It was included in the sale of Reisinger’s estate in 1916. This painting belonged to four museum collections at different points in its history.

[1]  “Hugo Reisinger Dies in Germany,” New York Times, September 29, 1914, p. 11. 

Selected Literature

From American Art Galleries, 1916

The spectator is in a cañon or valley among the mountains, its sides steeply sloping from heights which mount out of the picture on either hand, their recession in perspective permitting a glimpse of the sky—blue and white—high over the center, where the eye travels past green, rounded summits. Slightly below these summits a mountain river comes into view, tumbling abruptly over a ledge, and streaming in a heavy curtain of white foam to depths below to which the observer looks down over foreground treetops. There, below, the stream in sinuous course hurries in clouded-emerald hues between rocky banks of wonderful color, from rust-brown and sandy red through purpled shadows to a fairy opalescence shimmering in the sunshine, and seeming almost to transform these rockribs of the globe into structures of a different world.