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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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Keywords
OP.1172
Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago
ca. 1893
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman–
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, Bequest of Frederick W. Schumacher (1943.10)
Provenance
John Bannon;
(Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York, February 23–24, 1915, lot 131);
to Victor Harris;
(Parke-Bernet, New York, April 1, 1942, lot 20;
to Frederick W. Schumacher, Columbus, Ohio;
bequest to present collection, 1957.
Literature
Fifth Avenue Art Galleries 1915
Auction catalogue, February 23–24, 1915. New York: Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, 1915, lot 131, as Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago.
Parke-Bernet 1942–I
Paintings of the Modern French and American Schools, Auction catalogue, April 1, 1942. New York: Parke-Bernet, 1942, lot 20, as Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago.
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. 547 (catalogue A, no. 157), as Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago. (Hale concordance).
Bishop 1981
Bishop, Budd Harris. "19th-Century American Painting." Antiques 120 (October–December 1981), p. 1179 ill. in b/w, as Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago.
Columbus Museum of Art 1988
The American Collections: Columbus Museum of Art. Columbus, Ohio: Columbus Museum of Art, 1988, pp. 30–31 ill. in color, 265, as Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago.
Hiesinger 1991
Hiesinger, Ulrich. Impressionism in America: The Ten American Painters. Munich: Prestel, 1991, p. 22 ill. in b/w, as Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago.
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. 335; vol. 2, p. 870 ill. in b/w (fig. 356), as Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago.
Lovell 1996
Lovell, Margaretta. "Picturing 'A City for a Single Summer': Paintings of the World's Columbian Exposition." Art Bulletin 78 (1996), pp. 43, 45 ill. in b/w, as Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago.
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. 109–10 ill. in b/w, as Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago.
Commentary

Twachtman did not visit the “White City”—the World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893—but he was among the artists to receive assignments from Frank Millet, who oversaw the fair’s decorations, to create images of it for a deluxe publication on its history. Although this project never came to fruition, Twachtman completed several views of the fair, including this scene looking across the Basin Pool to Richard M. Hunt’s administration building with its golden dome. In Century magazine, Henry van Brunt noted that Hunt’s idea in the building had been “a civic temple based upon the model of the domical cathedrals of the Renaissance. Following this type, he projected, upon the crossing of two axial lines, a hall of octagonal plan; but unlike the cathedrals, this hall was designed to form the fundamental basis, the leading motive, of the design, not only on the interior but on the exterior of the structure.”[1]

In his composition, Twachtman cropped the scene obliquely to offset the symmetry of Hunt's architectural design, featuring red flags prominently at the right, where fairgoers can be seen along the quay. However, he also accentuated the centrality of the administration building, its dome glistening against the overcast sky. 

[1] Henry van Brunt, “Architecture at the World's Columbian Exposition,” Century 64 (May 1892), pp. 90–91.

Selected Literature

From Columbus Museum of Art 1988

While photographs of the exposition invariably emphasize the buildings, in Twachtman's picture the architecture is no more material than the surrounding atmosphere. Except for the pale yellow dome of the Administration Building, the bright light green of a half dome on the building just to its left, and a scattering of pinks in banners and one roof, the architecture is absorbed into the overall blue-gray scheme imposed by the artist. Brushed over a mauve ground color, the brilliant white plaster facades seem to merge with the atmosphere. The asymmetry of the composition is reinforced by the direction of the dry, thin brushstrokes that represent the surface of the pond, their drifting parallels precisely capturing the appearance of windblown currents on a shallow basin. This sensation of moving water combines with a/ subtle modulation of light on the surface and the receding space to convey an effect of buoyancy beneath the darker form of the Administration building.