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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
Canyon in the Yellowstone, ca. 1895 (OP.1306). Fig. 1. Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, North Rim, June 2022
Fig. 1. Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, North Rim, June 2022
Image: Lisa N. Peters
Keywords
OP.1306
Canyon in the Yellowstone
ca. 1895
Oil on canvas
30 1/4 x 25 in. (76.8 x 63.5 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman–
American Museum of Western Art—The Anschutz Collection, Denver (0911)
Provenance
Dr. Edward L. Partridge, New York by 1926;
private collection;
(Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, by 1985);
to (Christie's, New York, November 30, 1999, lot 80);
to present collection, 1999.
Exhibitions
2000 Denver Art Museum
Denver Art Museum, Painters and the American West, October 21, 2000–January 21, 2001, pp. 154 ill. in b/w, 155, as Canyon in the Yellowstone. Traveled to: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C, District of Columbia, May 8–July 30, 2001; The Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, November 3, 2001–January 13, 2002; Art Institute of Chicago, Summer 2003.
Literature
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. 514 (catalogue G, no. 763), as Canyon in the Yellowstone. (Hale concordance).
Antiques 1982–I
Antiques 121 (May 1982), p. 1013 ill. in color, as Canyon in the Yellowstone.
Weber 1994
Weber, Bruce. Berry-Hill Galleries, American Paintings VII. New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 1994. Exhibition catalogue, pp. 192–93 ill. in color, as Canyon in the Yellowstone.
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. 373; vol. 2, p. 913 ill. in b/w (fig. 399), as Canyon in the Yellowstone.
Christie's, New York 1999–II
Important American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, November 30, 1999. New York: Christie's, 1999, lot 80 ill. in color, as Canyon in the Yellowstone.
Troccoli 2000
Troccoli, Jane Carpenter. Painters and the American West. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000. Exhibition catalogue, pp. 154 ill. in color, 155, as Canyon in the Yellowstone.
Hassrick 2015
Hassrick, Peter H. Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in America's First National Park. Cody, Wyoming: Buffalo Bill Center of the West, 2015, p. 105 ill. in color, as Canyon in the Yellowstone.
Peters 2024
Peters, Lisa N. "John Twachtman: An American Impressionist's Yellowstone." Montana: The Magazine of Western History 74 (Autumn 2024), pp. 14 ill. in color, 19–20, as Canyon in the Yellowstone.
Commentary

In this scene, Twachtman depicted the broken-topped vertical ledges and castellated pinnacles of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. His view is from the North Rim near Lookout Point (fig. 1). His subject matter is comparable to that in works by Thomas Moran, such as Rainbow over the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 1900 (Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.) However, the artists approached this scenery differently. In Moran's image, the viewer is meant to feel a sense of sublime danger and awe, as the jagged outcroppings are illuminated by a supernatural light, while a rainbow forming overhead proves that the scene is beyond simple human experience. Twachtman's view also drops off precipitously, but it feels safer, as if we are gazing out from a lookout point, from which we can visually trace the shapes and patterns in the snow-dusted rocks, crevices, and ridges. Flattening the perspective, Twachtman emphasized the overlapping silhouettes of the cliffs.