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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.1444
Sailboats in a Harbor
Alternate titles: Gloucester Boats; Gloucester Harbor
ca. 1902
Oil on canvas
27 1/8 x 22 in. (68.9 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman–
Location unknown
Provenance
Martha Twachtman, the artist's wife, Greenwich, Connecticut;
(Milch, by 1925);
Mrs. James B. Mabon, by 1949;
private collection, by 1980;
to (Hirschl & Adler, 1980);
to Richard Manoogian, 1980;
to (Jordan-Volpe Gallery, New York, 1991).
Exhibitions
1928 Anderson Galleries
Anderson Galleries, New York, Exhibition of Works by American Artists Selected by the Associated Dealers in American Paintings. Inc., February 21–March 10, 1928, no. 111, as Gloucester Boats, lent by E. & A. Milch, Inc.
1949 Milch
Milch Galleries, New York, Paintings by John H. Twachtman, November 14–December 3, 1949, no. 4, as Gloucester Boats.
Literature
New York Times 1925
"The World of Art: Dwight W. Tryon—Summer Exhibitions." New York Times Magazine, July 19, 1925, p. 18 ill. in b/w, as Gloucester Harbor.
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. 453 (catalogue G, no. 231), as Gloucester Harbor. (Hale concordance).
Commentary

This painting was featured in an article in the New York Times Magazine in 1925, in which the author stated that it was “the last work to come from Twachtman's easel.”[1] At the time, the painting was on view at Milch Gallery, New York, and perhaps this information was given to the gallery by the artist's daughter Marjorie, who was with her father in Gloucester in his last days.

The scene is probably a view looking along the south side of the pier that led to Robinson’s Landing in East Gloucester, where the ferry, Little Giant, picked up passengers (see Little Giant, OP.1441), a short distance from where Twachtman was residing at the Harbor View Hotel (see Harbor View Hotel, OP.1445). In the painting, his angle was just above the level of the water, resulting in a strong emphasis on the foreground, where the boats and pier form a radial arrangement, while the opposite shore is only slightly above the middle of the canvas. Its mass is broken by the masts near boats and a sailboat on the left.

[1]  The catalogue for this exhibition has not yet been located.

Selected Literature

From New York Times Magazine 1925

Fine as the Tryon is, however eloquent as it is of a sincere talent, a thoughtful mind, a scrupulous character, it cannot be said to bound into existence with the buoyant youthful spring of the magnificent Twachtman on the adjoining wall. . . . It was painted in 1902, the year of the artist’s death, and shows no sign of the waning force. The beautiful ships ride into the picture with the ease and gayety of well-built craft. The water has the deep rhythm of the tides beneath the gentle tumult of its upper waves. The architecture of the composition is the vital arrangement of line well known to Twachtman from his earliest Cincinnati period. The color swells and ebbs, the sky is heavy with moist air and clouds move as if carrying a burden across its soft expanse. Never a more beautiful pictures or one in which the splendor of Twachtman’s gift appears more magically embodied. An artist who many times has been called distinguished, whose art was once labeled with the hateful tag “refined,” whose asymmetries were assumed to derive wholly from an acquaintance with Japanese design, who is caught in the amber of rather dreadful praise more inextricably than any of his generation, in this picture shakes himself free and shows the powerful quality of his art, the resilience of his line, the fullness and deep-toned purity of his color, the careless mastery of his unerring execution.