Catalogue Entry
In My House, Twachtman chose a close-up, three-quarter perspective on the front of his Greenwich home (its south facade), which recedes on a diagonal dividing the scene. At the right, the two dormers he constructed on the original farmhouse seem joined to the hill on the opposite side of Round Hill Road. In the foreground, on an oblique angle is the temple-front portico, set on Tuscan columns, which Twachtman added onto his house in the last phase of its construction. He may have been advised in its design by Stanford White, but probably built it himself. Here it shimmers in atmospheric light, while a potted plant with red flowers on the ledge leading up to it helps identify the home as a place of beauty rather than utility. The Grecian-style doorway, suggestive of a temple in ancient Arcadia, contributes to this image of pastoral contentment.
A recent photograph demonstrates the accuracy of Twachtman’s painting while revealing how he expressed his emotional response to what he observed (fig. 1). As his student Allen Tucker commented: “In his pictures we are moved, not by the mere representation, but by what the painter thinks and says about the world.”[1]
My House is among the works that Twachtman exhibited often. He first showed it in the second exhibition of the Ten American Painters, held in April 1899. That this was the painting on view is confirmed by a critic’s description of it in Artist magazine. The critic felt that a work titled The Brook (unidentified) “lacked vivacity,” whereas the “picture of ‘My House,’ a sunlit white porch surrounded with greenery, was as gladsome and spontaneous as could be.”
Twachtman sent the painting in the following month to an exhibition of the Buffalo Society of Artists, where he had first shown in 1893 and where Mrs. Charles Cary, who had hosted him in Niagara, had become president in 1897.[2] The painting was probably the work titled My House that he contributed in July 1899 to the sixth annual exhibition of American art at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Confusingly he exhibited another painting as My House in the Ten exhibition of 1900, which was probably the work now known as The Portico (OP.925).
This painting’s accession number implies that it was acquired by Yale University Art Gallery in 1887. However, the painting must have entered the collection in 1900. In fall 1897, the artist’s son Alden had begun to study at the Yale School of Art, which was under the direction of Twachtman’s old friend John Ferguson Weir—Weir was the first director (later dean) of the school (serving there from 1869 to 1913). In spring 1899 Alden received the Winchester Fellowship from the school, enabling him to study in Paris at École des Beaux-Arts in 1900–1901. Weir appears to be referencing this painting in a letter he wrote to Twachtman on December 15, 1899, indicating that the painting was in exchange for Alden’s tuition. He wrote: “We have decided that it is better to leave the matter of the selection of the picture you are to send in for Alden’s art school expenses up to you and I would suggest that it would be well if this could be before the April 16 as a matter for record.”[3]
[1] Tucker 1931, p. 10.
[2] Information on the history of the Buffalo Society of Artists can be found in http://www.buffalosocietyofartists.com/?select=bsa_history, accessed March 23, 2016.
[3] John Ferguson Weir, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, December 15, 1899, to John H. Twachtman, John F. Weir Collection, Yale University Archives, New Haven, Connecticut, Box 5, Folder: 123.
- Museum website (artgallery.yale.edu)