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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Catalogue Entry

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Keywords
P.825
Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut
Alternate titles: Cos Cob; Cos Cob, Conn.
ca. 1888–95
Pastel on paper
10 x 12 in. (25.4 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman–
Private collection, London
Image: Roz Akin
Provenance
(Milch, by 1928–ca. 1942);
C. C. Gibson, San Francisco, by 1957;
(Bernard and S. Dean Levy, New York, by 1979);
to (Hirschl & Adler, 1979);
to private collection, Florida, 1980;
to (Spanierman, 1992);
to private collection, 1993;
to present collection, 2000.
Exhibitions
1942–I Babcock
Babcock Galleries, New York, Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels by John H. Twachtman, February 9–28, 1942, no. 23, as Cos Cob, Conn.
1993 Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, The Intimate Landscapes of John H. Twachtman (1853–1902), May 5–July 2, 1993, as Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut.
2001–I Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, Two Hundred Years of American Watercolors, Pastels, and Drawings,, April 16–June 30, 2001, no. 26, as Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut.
2005 Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, The Poetic Vision: American Tonalism, November 12, 2005–January 7, 2006, no. 38, ill., pp. 75, 170 ill. in color, 171, as Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut.
2006 Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter," May 4–June 24, 2006. (Nelson 2006); (Parkes 2006); (Peters 2006–I); (Peters 2006–II); (Peters 2006–III); (Peters 2006–IV), no. 25, as Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut. Traveled to: Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut, July 13–October 29, 2006.
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. 586 (catalogue A, no. 926), as Cos Cob. (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, p. 269; vol. 2, p. 820 ill. in b/w (fig. 296), as Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut.
Peters 2005–I
Peters, Lisa N. "'Spiritualized Naturalism': The Tonal-Impressionist Art of J. Alden Weir and John H. Twachtman." In The Poetic Vision: American Tonalism, by Ralph Sessions et al. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2005. Exhibition catalogue, p. 75, as Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut.
Peters 2005–II
Peters, Lisa N. "John Henry Twachtman." In The Poetic Vision: American Tonalism, by Ralph Sessions et al. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2005, pp. 170 ill. in color, 171 (no. 38), as Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut.
Peters 2006–III
Peters, Lisa N. "Twachtman and the Equipoise of Impressionism and Tonalism." In John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter", by Lisa N Peters. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Spanierman), p. 58, as Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut.
Peters 2006–IV
Peters, Lisa N. "Catalogue." In John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter", by Lisa N. Peters. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Spanierman), pp. 128–29 ill. ill. in color, as Path in the Hills, Branchville, Connecticut.
Commentary

This pastel was exhibited as Cos Cob, Conn. in 1928 at Babcock Galleries. However, the landscape is characteristic of Branchville's upland meadows crossed by meandering paths. This pastel may have been the work titled The Path across the Hills, included in Twachtman's 1891 show at Wunderlich Gallery. A critic for the New York Evening Post described it, and pastels titled Harvesting (possibly P.931) and Road to Round Hill (P.922), as “some nice color notes,” stating that “as pastel sketches they are satisfying enough, though why the artist should not have given a little more solidity in the rendering of his motives is about the first thing one asks in looking at them.”[1]

[1] New York Evening Post 1891.

Selected Literature


From Peters 2006–IV 

Incorporating the oatmeal-grained paper’s underlying tone into his arrangement, here Twachtman used his colors with extreme restraint. His subject, a spring day possibly just after a rainfall, is suggested by the effect of pressing the flat side of the crayon across the paper, evoking the delicacy of the damp earth and of new foliage barely covering the ground.  Through this approach, as in Gray Day [301], he created a sense of surface depth.  He drew the trees with the “shorthand” method remarked on by critics of his time, using his pencil with light agility to convey the essence of their forms rather than to portray them in literal detail.  Likewise, in the small patch of sky that is visible, he rendered the thinness of the clouds with slight touches of pale whitish blue [p. 128].