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

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Keywords
OP.800
Landscape
1887
Oil on panel
15 1/2 x 12 3/8 in. (39.4 x 31.4 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: J. H. Twachtman 1887
Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Carl F. Clarke (53.125)
Exhibitions
1966 Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Art Museum, John Henry Twachtman: A Retrospective Exhibition, October 7–November 20, 1966. (Exhibition catalogue: Baskett 1966); (Exhibition catalogue: Boyle 1966–I), no. 30, as Landscape, lent by the Detroit Institute of Arts.
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. 557 (catalogue A, no. 334), as Landscape. (Hale concordance).
Yarnall 1977–I
Yarnall, James L. "John H. Twachtman's 'Icebound.'" Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 71 (January–February 1977), p. 3 ill. in b/w, as Landscape.
Peters 1989–I
Peters, Lisa N. "Twachtman's Greenwich Paintings: Context and Chronology." In John Twachtman: Connecticut Landscapes, by Deborah Chotner, Lisa N. Peters, and Kathleen A. Pyne. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1989. Exhibition catalogue (1989–II National Gallery of Art), pp. 15–16 ill. in b/w, as Landscape.
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. 35; vol. 2, p. 747 ill. in b/w (fig. 216), as Landscape.
Commentary

Dated 1887, this is among the last instances when Twachtman dated one of his works. Leaving behind the smooth washes of his French period, here he returned to stronger brush handling. The work’s site may be Pelee Island, Ontario, in Lake Erie, where Twachtman spent time in the summers of 1886 and 1887. There his father-in-law, John Milton Scudder, played a significant role. After visiting the island in 1863 on a fishing and hunting trip, Scudder purchased 4,000 acres mainly of marshland, around which he built drainage ditches. Skeptical about Twachtman’s ability to succeed as an artist after his return from Europe in early 1886, Dr. Scudder sent him to tend cattle on Pelee Island. His presence on the island is recorded in the summers of 1886 and 1887, and this is perhaps a view of the Scudder marsh farm.