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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
Tuckerman's Ravine, 1873 (OP.2). Fig. 1. Tuckerman’s Ravine from Hermit Lake, wood engraving from William Cullen Bryant, ed., Picturesque America; Or, The Land We Live In (New York: A. Appleton, 1872), vol. 1, p. 160.
Fig. 1. Tuckerman’s Ravine from Hermit Lake, wood engraving from William Cullen Bryant, ed., Picturesque America; Or, The Land We Live In (New York: A. Appleton, 1872), vol. 1, p. 160.
Keywords
OP.2
Tuckerman's Ravine
1873
Oil on canvas
15 1/8 x 18 in. (38.4 x 45.7 cm)
Signed, dated, and inscribed lower left: J. H. Twachtman Cin. O. 1873
Private collection
Provenance
Louis C. Twachtman, the artist's cousin, Cincinnati;
to his son, Eric R. Twachtman;
to his son Paul A. Twachtman, 1947;
by descent to present collection, 1967.
Exhibitions
1873 Cincinnati Industrial Exposition
Cincinnati Fourth Industrial Exposition, Exhibition of Paintings, Engravings, Drawings, September 3–October 4, 1873, no. 18, as Tuckerman's Ravine.
Literature
Clark 1924
Clark, Eliot. John Twachtman. New York: privately printed, 1924, p. 30, as Tuckerman's Ravine.
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, pp. 165–66; vol. 2, p. 565 (catalogue A, no. 491), as Tuckerman's Ravine. (Hale concordance).
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, pp. 22–23; vol. 2, p. 69 (fig. 3) ill. in b/w, as Tuckerman's Ravine.
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. 19 ill. in b/w, 90, as Tuckerman's Ravine.
Peters 2006–II
Peters, Lisa N. "Twachtman's Realist Art and the Aesthetic Liberation of Modern Life." In John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter", by Lisa N. Peters. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Spanierman), pp. 31–32 ill. in color (fig. 22), as Tuckerman's Ravine.
Commentary

Exhibited at the 1873 Cincinnati Industrial Exposition with the title of Tuckerman's Ravine, this painting depicts a glacial cirque on the southeast face of Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It is clear that Twachtman did not visit this site because he derived his image of it from a wood engraving by the landscape painter and etcher Harry Fenn (1837–1911) (after a painting). The image was illustrated as “Tuckerman's Ravine, from Hermit's Lake,” in Picturesque America; or The Land We Live In (1872) (fig. 1).[1]

Twachtman was faithful to his source, but heightened the scene's drama, enhancing the jaggedness of the mountains and the mists enveloping them. He set the dead trees in the foreground in relief against the mountains and sky and darkened the water to bring out the vivacity of the sunset.    

[1] Harry Fenn, “Tuckerman's Ravine from Hermit Lake, in Picturesque America; or The Land We Live In, ed. William Cullen Bryant (New York: A. Appleton, 1872), vol. 1, p. 160. For the second work Twachtman exhibited at the 1873 Cincinnati Industrial Exposition, View in Tennessee (location unknown), his source may also have been from Picturesque America; perhaps it derived from "Lookout Mountain and the Tennessee," which similarly included illustrations by Harry Fenn (pp. 52–73).

Selected Literature

From Clark 1924

We have a photograph of a picture entitled Tuckerman's Ravine, dated 1873, owned by Louis Twachtman, brother of the painter. The title does not suggest the picture; nor does the picture suggest the painter. Great mountain peaks rise in the background, in front of which is a placid lake bordered by gnarled and time worn trees. The subject was probably suggested by other pictures; the mountains have no structural form, and the picture is of interest merely as being a very early example of the artist.

From Hale 1957

The work exhibits more command of the medium than is shown in The Loyal Hotel [OP.1]. But the gain in technical skill is offset by a lack of restraint as to handling, and the subject matter is so consciously picturesque, that only the typical Twachtman signature identifies it as his work. Presumably, the painting was inspired by other pictures or by photographs, since it would appear impossible for the young artist to have visited the subject of the work, Tuckerman Ravine, in the New Hampshire mountains. Whatever the original stimulus the piece is not without merit. If one can ignore the too dramatically gnarled trees, wild mountains, and murky cypress pond, he may notice that the picture's arrangement is not as haphazard as it first appears. As in so many of the painter's mature works, the apparent casualness of the composition tends to mislead [vol. 1, 165–66].