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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.911
The Twachtman House
Alternate titles: Twachtman House, Greenwich; Twachtman's House; Twachtman's House, Cos Cob
ca. 1892–94
Oil on panel
13 x 20 in. (33 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman–
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas, The John and Mildred L. Graves Collection (1994.10)
Provenance
(Macbeth, 1920s);
to Grace Rainey Rogers;
to (Parke-Bernet, New York, Rogers sale, November 18–19, 1943, lot 17);
to (Milch, 1943);
to Sidney Levyne, Baltimore, 1946;
reaquired in trade by (Milch, 1948);
to Frank W. Spencer, Morristown, New Jersey, 1949;
to estate of Frank W. Spencer;
to (Milch, 1972);
to Mr. and Mrs. John W. Graves, Wichita, Kansas, 1972, gift to present collection, 1972.
Exhibitions
1932 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum, New York, Exhibition of Paintings by American Impressionists and Other Artists of the Period 1880–1900, January 18–February 28, 1932, no. 112, as Twachtman House, Greenwich, lent by Macbeth Galleries, New York.
1935 Milch
Milch Galleries, New York, Selected Small Paintings by 19th- and 20th-Century American Artists, February 4–24, 1935, no. 4.
1949 Milch
Milch Galleries, New York, Paintings by John H. Twachtman, November 14–December 3, 1949, no. 13, as Twachtman's House, Cos Cob.
1984 Wichita Art Museum
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas, The John W. and Mildred L. Graves Collection, December 1, 1984–January 3, 1985, pp. 100–101 ill. in color, as Twachtman House, Greenwich.
Literature
Parke-Bernet 1943
Collection of the Late Grace Rainey Rogers. Auction catalogue, November 18–19, 1943. New York: Parke-Bernet, 1943, lot 17, as The Twachtman House.
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. 556 (catalogue A, no. 310), as Twachtman's House. (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. 344; vol. 2, p. 877 ill. in b/w (fig. 363), as The Twachtman House.
Commentary

Twachtman’s view in this painting is looking south toward the back of his Greenwich home (its north facade) from the opposing hillside, the edge of which is cropped across the foreground. Here the house is submerged by the landscape, its proportions repeating those of its panel support, establishing harmony between it and its setting. The Twachtman family barn is blended into the trees in the left foreground. It serves as a repoussoir element, establishing a means for the viewer to enter into the scene and gaze upward to the luminous presence of the house resting peacefully at the hillcrest and sheltered by trees. 

This painting probably remained in the artist’s estate until the 1920s, when Macbeth Galleries sold it to Grace Rainey Rogers (1867–1943), a benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The work was included in the sale of Rogers’s estate in 1943, from which it was purchased by Milch Galleries. It was acquired from Milch by Baltimore arts patron Sidney Levyne, but reaquired in trade by Milch in 1948. The gallery sold it to Frank W. Spencer, of Morristown, New Jersey. From Spencer’s estate, it again passed through Milch, and in 1972, it entered the collection of the important Wichita, Kansas, art patrons John W. and Mildred L. Graves, who purchased a large collection of American paintings in New York in the 1960s and 1970s that they gave to the Wichita Art Museum in 1972.[1] 

[1] See Howard E. Wooden, “Foreword,” in 1984 Wichita Art Museum, pp. 5–6.

Selected Literature

From Wichita Art Museum website

Twachtman scholar Lisa Peters interprets Twachtman’s paintings of his house as testimony to the artist’s personal sense of serenity and comfort: he paints the house from a vantage point of a low hill behind the structure and looking down on it. One sees his garden, several paths crossing the landscape, and plenty of vegetation. The house seems to be snugly planted in a bed of lush greenery. The pastel colors, the blurred forms, and the textured brushwork convey the idea of the merging of architecture and landscape. It is as if organic harmony between man and nature had been achieved. (http://acm.wichitaartmuseum.org/acm/detail.php?action=v&id=1457890577725240)