John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society
Print this page
« previous // return to Works // next »

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Keywords
OP.1413
Main Street, Gloucester
ca. 1900
Oil on panel
14 x 9 15/16 in. (35.6 x 25.3 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman
Exhibitions
Art Institute of Chicago, Exhibition of the Works of John H. Twachtman, January 8–27, 1901, no. 28, as Main Street, Gloucester.
Cincinnati Art Museum, Exhibition of Sixty Paintings by Mr. John H. Twachtman, Formerly Resident in Cincinnati, April 12–May 16, 1901, no. 3, as Main Street, Gloucester.
American Art Galleries, New York, Sale of the Work of the Late John H. Twachtman, exhibition and auction, March 19–24, 1903, no. 90, as Main Street, Gloucester.
Davis & Long Company, New York, American Painting, October 6–27, 1976, no. 34, as Main Street, Gloucester.
Literature
"Exhibitions of the Week." Chicago Times Herald (December 30, 1900), p. 7, as Main Street, Gloucester.
"Twachtman Pictures, $16,610." Sun (New York), March 25, 1903, p. 5, as Main Street, Gloucester.
"Twachtman Picture Sale." New York Times, March 25, 1903, p. 5, as Main Street, Gloucester.
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. 496 (catalogue G, nos. 600a and 600b), as Main Street, Gloucester. (Hale concordance).
Art in America 49 (October 1961), 127 ill. in b/w, as Main Street, Gloucester.
Commentary

Twachtman did not feature this painting among the twenty-four charcoal sketches he created after works he rendered in Gloucester in the summer of 1900. However, the work was created then, as it was in his 1901 solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago in January and the Cincinnati Art Museum in April–May. A reviewer for the Chicago Times Herald was probably referring to it in describing one of Twachtman's subjects as "a street in Gloucester seen through a mist." The painting is probably a view along Main Street in East Gloucester, below Banner Hill, from which he rendered so many of his Gloucester works. The telephone poles that recede into the distance indicate Twachtman's interest in embracing aspects of modern life in his art, anticipating the approach of the Ashcan School.  

The painting was included as Main Street, Gloucester in Twachtman's 1903 estate sale, from which it sold for $70 to H. A. Pomeroy, who purchased two other works from the sale including On the Ways (OP.1424).