Catalogue Entry
In this scene, Twachtman view was looking north from directly below Horseneck Falls. The work has an appearance of flatness in its animated surface and cropping. However, the large rock at the top of the falls that quickened its movement is set back from the picture plane, establishing more depth than in the similar Horseneck Falls, Greenwich, Connecticut (OP.1130).
The work may have been acquired from Twachtman directly by the artist and art teacher John Henry Niemeyer (1839–1932). The two artists knew each other while growing up in Cincinnati and maintained their friendship in New York, where both were members of the Society of American Artists in the early 1880s. Niemeyer became a professor of art at Yale University in 1871; among his pupils was Twachtman’s friend Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Niemeyer probably also knew or taught Twachtman’s son, Alden, who entered the Yale School of Art in 1897 and remained on the New Haven campus until the fall of 1900 when, after receiving the Winchester Prize, he continued his training in Paris. Perhaps Niemeyer acquired the painting at the time Alden was at Yale. The painting was given by Niemeyer’s estate to Yale, four years after his death.
- Museum website (artgallery.yale.edu)