loading loading
John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Additional Images
Snow Scene, 1882 (OP.511). Fig. 1. Louis Ritter, Snow Scene, 1882, oil on canvas, 16 x 10 1/8 in., Cincinnati Art Museum, Gift of the Estate of Louise F. Drude (1916.8).
Fig. 1. Louis Ritter, Snow Scene, 1882, oil on canvas, 16 x 10 1/8 in., Cincinnati Art Museum, Gift of the Estate of Louise F. Drude (1916.8).
Snow Scene, 1882 (OP.511). Fig. 2. "Recent Humane Benefactors," National Humane Review (April 1914), p. 80: "Miss Louise P. Drude, 1849–1913)."
Fig. 2. "Recent Humane Benefactors," National Humane Review (April 1914), p. 80: "Miss Louise P. Drude, 1849–1913)."
Keywords
OP.511
Snow Scene
1882
Oil on canvas
12 1/16 x 16 1/16 in. (30.6 x 40.8 cm)
Dated and signed lower left: 1882 J. H. T. Inscribed lower left: Mrs. Ritter / Xmas
Cincinnati Art Museum, Bequest of Louise Drude (1916.9)
Provenance
Louise F. Drude, Cincinnati;
bequest to present collection, 1916.
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. 15, p. 23 ill. in b/w, as Snow Scene.
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. 287, pp. 106–7, 198 ill. in b/w, as Snow Scene.
1999 High Museum of Art
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, John Henry Twachtman: An American Impressionist, February 26–May 21, 2000. (Peters 1999–I), no. 6, as Snow Scene. Traveled to: Cincinnati Art Museum, June 6–September 5, 1999; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, October 16, 1999–January 2, 2000.
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. 185, 187 ill. in b/w (fig. 20); vol. 2, p. 570 (catalogue A, no. 566), as Snow Scene. (Hale concordance).
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, pp. 106–107, 198 ill. in b/w, as Snow Scene.
Janson 1982
Janson, Anthony. "The Cincinnati Landscape Tradition." In Celebrate Cincinnati Art: In Honor of the Hundredth Anniversary of the Cincinnati Art Museum, 1881–1981. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 1982. Exhibition catalogue, pp. 22 ill. in b/w, 24, as Snow Scene.
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. 160; vol. 2, p. 693 ill. in b/w (fig. 154), as Snow Scene.
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. 42 ill. in color (detail), 55 ill. in color, 56, as Snow Scene.
Aronson 2003
Aronson, Julie. The Cincinnati Wing: The Story of Art in the Queen City. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum in association with Ohio University Press, 2003, p. 143 ill. in color, as Snow Scene.
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. 49 ill. in color (fig. 48), as Snow Scene.
Commentary

Dated “1882,” and inscribed “Mrs. Ritter / / Xmas," this painting was probably given by Twachtman to Mary Ritter (b. ca. 1825), the widowed mother of his friend Louis Ritter (1854–1892). Twachtman and Ritter often crossed paths.[1] In February 1883 both showed snow scenes in an exhibition at Closson’s Gallery, Cincinnati. Ritter's was described as a “snow scene on Mount Auburn” and Twachtman's were titled Snow Scene and A Frosty Morning.[2]

Ritter's painting is possibly a work dated 1882, belonging to the Cincinnati Art Museum (fig. 1). Twachtman's Snow Scene in the museum's collection is also dated 1882, and was perhaps one of the works he showed. The two interpreted the subject differently. Ritter created a more literal and poetic image of bare trees in a desolate landscape whereas Twachtman established a more modern, abstract conception, emphasizing the graphic contrast of interlocked dark shapes, cropped abruptly, against the whites of the ground and sky. 

The two works were possibly purchased from the Closson's show by Louise F. Drude (1849–1913), a resident of Cincinnati who was active in the American Humane Society and the first secretary of the Ohio Audubon Society (fig. 2).[3] Both were part of Drude's 1916 bequest to the Cincinnati Art Museum. 

[1] Both artists were born in Cincinnati, studied in Munich in the mid-1870s, and taught at Duveneck’s school in Florence in 1880. By 1883 both were back in Cincinnati. 

[2] Cincinnati Commercial Gazette 1883.

[3] On Louise F. Drude, see “Recent Humane Benefactions,” The National Humane Review 2 (April 1914), p. 80.