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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Keywords
OP.309
The Boat Yard
Alternate title: Boat Yard
ca. 1879
Oil on canvas
7 1/2 x 13 1/2 in. (19 x 34.3 cm)
Signed lower right: Twachtman
Location unknown
Exhibitions
1882 National Academy of Design probably
National Academy of Design, New York, Fifty-Seventh Annual Exhibition, April–May 1882, no. 476, as Boat Yard.
1965 Everson Museum of Art
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, American Painting, December 3, 1965–January 16, 1966, no. 66, as The Boat Yard, lent by Mr. and Mrs. Gustav D. Klimann, Boston.
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. 9, as The Boat Yard, lent by the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York.
1966 Everson Museum
Everson Museum of Art of Syracuse and Onondoga County, New York, American Painting from 1830, December 3–January 16, 1966, no. 66, p. 61 ill. in b/w, as The Boat Yard, lent by Mr. and Mrs. Gustav D. Klimann, Boston, Mass.
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. 432 (catalogue G, no. 62), as Boat Yard. (Hale concordance).
Sotheby Parke Bernet 1977–I
American 19th- and 20th-Century Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, April 21, 1977. New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1977, lot 47 ill. in b/w, as The Boat Yard.
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. 93–94; vol. 2, p. 636 ill. in b/w (fig. 82), as The Boat Yard.
Commentary

Like Coast Scene (OP.309), this is probably a view of the area of Jersey City, southwest of the Morris Canal, that Twachtman could have accessed readily on leaving the ferry depot in Communipaw. The peninsula had been extended by landfill into New York Bay beginning in the 1870s. Today it is the location of Liberty State Park.

In the late 1870s, the area was sparsely settled by fishermen, oyster farmers, and squatters.[1] However, the industrialized city to the north was quickly closing in as Twachtman suggests here in the smoke and a crane in the left distance. His view in the work is along the shore, from a closer perspective than in Coast Scene. Although this painting appears more rapidly executed than Coast Scene, the difference in the imagery in the two works indicates that it was not a study for the larger painting, but instead created independently. It was probably the work Twachtman exhibited as Boat Yard at the National Academy of Design annual in 1882 (not mentioned in reviews). By 1965, the painting belonged to Gustav D. Klimann (1915–1982), a Boston art restorer and collector, and his wife.

[1] I would like to thank John W. Beekman, assistant manager, Jersey City Free Public Library, for his assistance in identifying this site.