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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.319
Storm Clouds
1880
Oil on canvas
12 1/2 x 20 1/2 in. (31.8 x 52.1 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: J. H. Twachtman / 1880
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, Gift of Mrs. Henry A. Everett for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection (1935.217)
Provenance
Mrs. Henry A. Everett, Cleveland, by 1926 (on loan to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1926–29);
gift to present collection, 1935.
Exhibitions
1936 Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art, Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of The Cleveland Museum of Art: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition, June 26–October 4, 1936, no. 374, as Storm Clouds.
1937 Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art, American Painting From 1860 until Today, June 23–October 4, 1937, no. 199, as Storm Clouds.
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. 12, p. 23 ill. in b/w, as Storm Clouds, lent by the Cleveland Museum of Art.
1988 Mansfield Art Center
Mansfield Art Center, Ohio, The American Seascape: From John Smibert to John Marin, March 6–April 3, 1988, no. 44, as Storm Clouds.
Literature
Art News 1938
Art News 36 (September 17, 1938), p. 16, as Storm Clouds.
Francis 1938
Francis, Henry S. "The Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 6 (June 1938), p. 124, as Storm Clouds.
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, p. 315 ill. in b/w (Fig. 78); vol. 2, pp. 545–46 (catalogue A, no. 129), as Storm Clouds. (Hale concordance).
Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 1973
"A Check List: American Paintings and Water Colors of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Early Twentieth Centuries in the Cleveland Museum of Art." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art (January 1973), p. 34, as Storm Clouds.
Antiques 1973–IV
Antiques 104 (November 1973), p. 915 ill. in b/w, as Storm Clouds.
Chong 1993
Chong, Alan. European and American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993, p. 244 ill. in b/w, as Storm Clouds.
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. 129; vol. 2, p. 645 ill. in b/w (fig. 97), as Storm Clouds.
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), p. 45 ill. in b/w, as Storm Clouds.
Commentary

In June 1880, Twachtman traveled along the Atlantic Coast, stopping at Nonquitt, Massachusetts, and Block Island, Rhode Island, as he indicated in a letter to Julian Alden Weir.[1] Dated 1880, this painting may have resulted from this trip. In the work, his view is just above the level of the shore at the edge of a darkened sea while overhead storm clouds close in. Although evoking the paintings of coming storms rendered by Fitz Henry Lane and Martin Johnson Heade in the mid-nineteenth century, Twachtman's close vantage point, drawing the viewer's eye along the beach, creates a more directly emotive experience of the impending change in the weather. 

The painting was part of the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art, established in 1922 by Mrs. Henry (Josephine Pettengill) Everett (1866–1937) as a memorial to her daughter, Dorothy Burnham Everett. Between 1922 and 1935, Mrs. Everett added it to the collection; at her death, her will specified that the museum would have first choice among the art works in her possession. Storm Clouds, which entered the museum's collection in 1935, was part of Mrs. Everett's last gift to the museum.

[1] John H. Twachtman to Julian Alden Weir, June 29, 1880.