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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.1140
Falls in January
Late 1890s
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman–
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas, The Roland P. Murdock Collection (M44.43)
Provenance
Martha Twachtman, the artist's wife, Greenwich, Connecticut;
to (Macbeth, 1915);
to (Vose, 1918);
to Woodruff J. Parker, Chicago, October 1924;
to his wife, Mrs. Woodruff J. Parker, Chicago;
to (Vose);
to (Macbeth, April 1943);
to present collection, 1943.
Exhibitions
1919–I Vose
Vose Gallery, Boston, Exhibition of Selected Works by John H. Twachtman, January 27–February 15, 1919, no. 2, as Falls in January.
1919–II Vose
R. C. & N. M. Vose, Boston, Exhibition of Paintings by J. H. Twachtman, November 10–22, 1919, no. 1, as Falls in January.
1921 Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Art Museum, Twenty-Eighth Annual Exhibition of American Art, May 28–July 3, 1921, no. 99, as Falls in January, loaned by R. C. and N. M. Vose, Boston.
1922 Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit Institute of Arts, Loan Exhibition of Paintings Selected from the Collection of Messrs. R. C. and N. M. Vose of Boston, February 1922, no. 51, as Falls in January.
1922 Dallas Art Association
Dallas Art Association, Adolphus Hotel, Third Annual Exhibition: American Art from the Days of the Colonists to Now, November 16–30, 1922, no. 86, ill. in b/w, as Falls in January.
1923 Macbeth
Macbeth Gallery, New York, Thirteenth Annual Exhibition: Thirty Paintings by Thirty Artists, January 23–February 12, 1923, no. 26, as Falls in January.
1942–I Babcock
Babcock Galleries, New York, Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels by John H. Twachtman, February 9–28, 1942, no. 11, as Falls in January.
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. 23, p. 111 ill. in color, as Falls in January. Traveled to: Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, March 18–May 20, 1990.
1999 High Museum of Art
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, John Henry Twachtman: An American Impressionist, February 26–May 21, 2000. (Peters 1999–I), no. 19, pp. 93-94 ill. in color, as Falls in January. Traveled to: Cincinnati Art Museum, June 6–September 5, 1999; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, October 16, 1999–January 2, 2000.
Literature
Coburn 1919
Coburn, F[rederick] W. "In the World of Art." Boston Herald, February 2 1919, p. C5, as Falls in January.
Oliver 1919
Oliver, Jean Nutting. "Canvasses by Twachtman on View." Boston Sunday Advertiser and American, February 2, 1919, p. E3, as Falls in January.
Downes 1919–I
D[ownes], W[illiam] H[owe]. "Twachtman's Landscapes." Boston Evening Transcript, January 29, 1919, as Falls in January.
Downes 1919–II
Downes, William Howe. "Twachtman's Paintings." Boston Transcript, November 12, 1919, part 2, p. 4, as Falls in January.
Clark 1924
Clark, Eliot. John Twachtman. New York: privately printed, 1924, opp. p. 62 ill. in b/w, as Falls in January.
Tucker 1931
Tucker, Allen. John H. Twachtman. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1931, pp. 44-45 ill. in b/w.
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, p. 317 ill. in b/w; vol. 2, p. 548 (catalogue A, no. 162), as Falls in January. (Hale concordance).
Eldredge 1974
Eldredge, Charles. "Connecticut Impressionists: The Spirit of Place." Art in America 62 (September–October 1974), p. 88 ill. in b/w, as Falls in January.
McNally 1990
McNally, Owen. "Idyll Pleasures." Hartford Courant, March 18, 1990, p. G1 ill. in b/w, as Falls in January.
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. 381; vol. 2, p. 928 ill. in b/w (fig. 414), as Falls in January.
Peters 1999–I
Peters, Lisa N. John Henry Twachtman: An American Impressionist. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 High Museum of Art), pp. 93-94 ill. in color, as Falls in January.
Commentary

Falls in January is one of four works, along with Waterfall, Blue Brook (OP.1137), The Waterfall (OP.1138), The Cascade (OP.1139), in which Twachtman featured Horseneck Falls from a close-up and three-quarter view, broadly arranged within the picture plane. This canvas, the only winter scene in the group, provided Twachtman with an opportunity for a decorative image that explored the sinuous and graphic flatness of an Art Nouveau design.

Falls in January was in the artist’s estate until 1915, when it was sold or consigned by Martha Twachtman to Macbeth Gallery. The gallery, in turn, sold or consigned it to Vose Galleries of Boston. In 1924 it was purchased from Vose by Woodruff Parker of Chicago, a benefactor of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was bequeathed by Parker to his wife, who sold it through Vose, once again to Macbeth. The Wichita Art Museum purchased the painting from Macbeth in 1943.

Selected Literature

From Downes 1919–I

“The Falls in January” . . . illustrates the painter’s originality of observation and style. It depicts a cascade, in the depth of winter, masked in ice and snow, but keeping its main currents from the grasp of the Frost King though the vigorous, constant and sweeping movement of its tumbling masses of water, which rush in a torrent over the shelving rocks and ledges and swirl in wonderful patterns of blues and whites about the foot of the falls where they are framed in half melted masses of ice, beneath which the stream continues on its seaward journey.
          Analogies would fail to suggest themselves here, were it not for the recollection of some of the marvelous landscape compositions of Oriental artists, who combine the very acme of naturalism with so much of a sense of pattern. Nothing, however, could be more personal, more thoroughly based upon an independent conception of the beauty of winter and the wonders of nature, than this remarkable page of painting.