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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.300
New York Harbor
ca. 1879
Oil on pressed board
8 15/16 x 12 1/16 in. (22.7 x 30.6 cm)
Signed and inscribed lower right: J. H. Twachtman N.Y.
Cincinnati Art Museum, Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Walter J. Wichgar (1932.74)
Provenance
Mr. and Mrs. Walter J. Wichgar, Cincinnati;
bequest to present collection, 1924.
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. 10, p. 22 ill. in b/w, as New York Harbor.
1979 Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Art Museum, The Golden Age: Cincinnati Painters of the Nineteenth Century Represented in the Cincinnati Art Museum, October 6, 1978–January 13, 1979, no. 285, p.106, as New York Harbor.
1986 Cummer Gallery of Art
Cummer Gallery of Art, Jacksonville, Florida, Artistic Transitions: From the Academy to Impressionism in American Art, October 24, 1986–January 11, 1987, no. 45, p. 41 ill. in color, as New York Harbor.
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. 1, pp. 23, 178, 180 ill. in b/w, 181, 249; vol. 2, p. 551 (catalogue A, no. 238), as New York Harbor. (Hale concordance).
Boyle 1979
Boyle, Richard. John Twachtman. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1979, pp. 26–27, 32 ill. in color, as New York Harbor.
Carter and Weber 1979
Carter, Denny and Bruce Weber. The Golden Age: Cincinnati Painters of the Nineteenth Century Represented in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 1979, p. 106, as New York Harbor.
Gerdts 1984
Gerdts, William H. American Impressionism. New York: Abbeville, 1984, p. 109 ill. in b/w, as New York Harbor.
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. 13–14 ill. in b/w, as New York Harbor.
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. 78; vol. 2, p. 613 ill. in b/w (fig. 58), as New York Harbor.
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. 34 ill. in b/w, 35, as New York Harbor.
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), p. 42 ill. in color (fig. 36), as New York Harbor.
Commentary

In the late 1870s, the harbors of New York City were described as “wretched, tattered, and dilapidated." At the same time, they were considered representative of the city's vitality and potential. Among few artists of the day to depict this subject, Twachtman maintained the same approach as in his images of Venice, capturing his direct experience of his sites with an expressive, energetic paint handling. This was acknowledged by a New-York Tribune critic, who observed in 1881 that, while finding his motifs as easily in New York as in Venice, Twachtman had avoided “tame and characterless" depictions. However, a change occurred in his approach at this time, as he began to use his brush with more versatility and control. As the same critic stated, with his new reined-in method Twachtman conveyed "the value of budding masts, crossing ropes, and reflections shaken and jarred in the washing water."[1] Such a comment could have been directed toward this painting.

Here Twachtman’s view was below the foreground barge in the lower left corner of the scene, where he used the curve of its hull to guide the viewer to a white sail at the work's center, set amidst the crisscrossed patterns of the forms of tugboats and sailing vessels. In the middle-left distance, two scribbled shapes indicate figures on a dock or deck. The white square structure in the far right could be the same building in the far left corner of Oyster Boats, North River (OP.301), demonstrating the linkage that is often present in Twachtman's images, while suggesting that this painting is probably also a view of the Tenth Street Dock that was the back side of New York City's oyster market. 

This painting was first owned by Walter J. Wichgar (ca. 1874–1923), president of the Cincinnati Shoe Company. It was part of the 1924 bequest of Wichgar and his wife to the Cincinnati Art Museum, which included works by Frank Duveneck, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Dewing, Elihu Vedder, Robert Blum, and William Morris Hunt.

[1] New-York Tribune 1881.