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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.950
Winter
Early 1890s
Oil on canvas
21 5/8 x 26 1/8 in. (54.9 x 66.3 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman–
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Provenance
(Frank K. M. Rehn, New York);
to Duncan Phillips, Washington, D.C., 1920;
to present collection, 1920.
Exhibitions
1920 Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Selected Paintings from the Collections of Mrs. D.C. Phillips and Mr. Duncan Phillips of Washington, March 3–31, 1920, no. 51, as Winter.
1921 Phillips
Phillips Memorial Art Gallery, Washington, D.C., Selected Paintings from the Phillips Memorial Art Gallery, February 1921, no. 51, as Winter.
1921 Century Club
Century Club, New York, Selected Paintings from the Phillips Memorial Art Gallery, November 20–December 20, 1921, no. 2, as Winter.
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. 49, as Winter, lent by the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
1989–II National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., District of Columbia, John Twachtman: Connecticut Landscapes, October 15, 1989–January 28, 1990. (Exhibition catalogue: Chotner 1989); (Exhibition catalogue: Pyne 1989); (Exhibition catalogue: Peters 1989–I), no. 12, p. 100 ill. in color, as Winter. Traveled to: Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, March 18–May 20, 1990.
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. 294–95 ill. in b/w; vol. 2, p. 578 (catalogue A, no. 720), as Winter. (Hale concordance).
Boyle 1979
Boyle, Richard. John Twachtman. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1979, pp. 44–45 ill. in color, 46, as Winter.
Peters 1989–I
Peters, Lisa N. "Twachtman's Greenwich Paintings: Context and Chronology." In John Twachtman: Connecticut Landscapes, by Deborah Chotner, Lisa N. Peters, and Kathleen A. Pyne. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1989. Exhibition catalogue (1989–II National Gallery of Art), pp. 26, 36, as Winter.
May 1990
May, Stephen. "Twachtman at the Wadsworth Atheneum." Art Times (March 1990), p. 9, as Winter.
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. 349; vol. 2, p. 883 ill. in b/w (fig. 369), as Winter.
Spencer 2000
Spencer, Harold. "J. Alden Weir and the Image of the American Farm." In A Connecticut Place: Weir Farm—An American Painter's Rural Retreat, by Nicholai Cikovsky, Jr, et al. Wilton, Conn.: Weir Farm Trust in collaboration with the National Park Service, Weir Farm National Historic Site, 2000. Exhibition catalogue (2000 Weir Farm Trust), p. 58 ill. in b/w (fig. 45), as Winter.
Commentary

This seems the most ethereal of Twachtman’s paintings of his barn in winter, as seen from his studio on the second floor of his Greenwich home. The soft-edged red shape of the square structure hovers in the flocculent atmosphere, only seeming gradually to come into view, while  it is balanced gently against the receding masses of the snow-covered hills. Twachtman suggestively indicates the presence of trees with the use of thin brushes and quick, dragged strokes of paint. He incorporated the reserve of the canvas as areas of bare ground or used its color as part of his composition.

Twachtman first exhibited views of his barn in March 1891, when two paintings depicting this subject, Barn in Winter and Snow in Sunlight, were included in his solo exhibition at Wunderlich Gallery. One of these was very likely to have been this painting. The New York Evening Post described the former: “‘The Barn—Winter,’ No. 10, with the pale sunshine falling on the white walls of the barn and the broad expanse of snow that covers the ground, is truthfully observed, and the motive is interpreted with a great deal of refinement and distinction in the color scheme.”[1] A writer for Art Amateur admired how Twachtman could elevate the winter scene: “Twelve of the sketches were in oils, several of them being snow scenes of extraordinary brilliancy. “Snow in Sunlight” and “The Barn Winter,” were among the best. The scene is the same in both—a rocky bit of ground on the confines of a small wood, with a yellow barn in the middle distance. Nothing could be more prosaic as to its associations, yet the painter has obtained from it two studies, which may be compared for poetic feeling to Whittier’s “Snow-Bound.” The changes of the shadows on the snow make them two different pictures.”[2]

A Barn in Winter was also in Twachtman’s 1901 exhibition at Durand-Ruel Gallery. Winter seems to have remained in the artist’s estate until around 1920, when it was sold by the dealer Frank Rehn to its present collection, where it represented winter in Duncan Phillips’s suite of four paintings by Twachtman, each depicting one of the seasons.

[1] New York Evening Post 1891.

[2] Art Amateur 1891.