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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.1134
The Cascade in Spring
Alternate titles: The Brook; The Waterfall
1890s
Oil on canvas
22 x 30 1/4 in. (55.9 x 76.8 cm)
Stamped lower right: Twachtman Sale [1903 estate stamp]
Location unknown
Image: Roz Akin
Provenance
(American Art Galleries, New York, Twachtman estate sale, March 24, 1903, no. 85);
to M. Mott;
Arthur B. Davies, Congers, New York;
to (Ferargil Galleries, New York, 1928);
to Virginia and Niles Davies, Congers, New York, 1935;
to (Parke-Bernet, New York, February 26, 1947, lot 94);
to (Ferargil Galleries, New York);
to (James Graham & Sons, New York);
to Joseph H. Hirshhorn, New York, 1962;
gift to Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1966;
to (Sotheby’s, New York, December 4, 2002, lot 4);
to (Spanierman, 2002);
to (Doyle, New York, May 8, 2013, lot 266).
Exhibitions
1903–I American Art Galleries
American Art Galleries, New York, Sale of the Work of the Late John H. Twachtman, exhibition and auction, March 19–24, 1903, no. 85, as The Cascade in Spring.
1928 Ferargil Galleries
Ferargil Galleries, New York, 19th and 20th Century American Paintings, February 11–March 1, 1928, as The Waterfall.
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. 109, as The Waterfall, lent by Ferargil, Inc.
1936 San Francisco Museum of Art
San Francisco Museum of Art, American Forerunners of Contemporary Painting, October 25–November 30, 1936, as The Brook.
1974 Hirshhorn Museum
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Inaugural Exhibition, October 1, 1974–September 15, 1975, as The Waterfall.
1980 Hurlbutt Gallery
William Benton Museum, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut and American Impressionism, March 20–May 31, 1980, no. 151, pp. 104, 112 ill., as The Waterfall.
1980 Vatican Museums
Vatican Museums, Vatican City State, Vatican City State, A Mirror of Creation: 150 Years of American Nature Painting, September 24–November 23, 1980, no. 35, as The Waterfall. Traveled to: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, December 20, 1980–March 15, 1981.
1991 Nassau County Museum of Art
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York, Landscape of America: The Hudson River School to Abstract Expressionism, November 10, 1991–January 9, 1992, pp. 32–33 ill. in b/w, 77,, as The Waterfall.
2006 Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter," May 4–June 24, 2006. (Nelson 2006); (Parkes 2006); (Peters 2006–I); (Peters 2006–II); (Peters 2006–III); (Peters 2006–IV), no. 55, as The Cascade in Spring. Traveled to: Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut, July 13–October 29, 2006.
Literature
Sun 1903–II
"Twachtman Pictures, $16,610." Sun (New York), March 25, 1903, p. 5, as The Cascade in Spring.
Art News 1929
"Paintings by American Artists: Ferargil Galleries." Art News 27 (March 2, 1929), 10, as The Waterfall.
Parke-Bernet 1947
XIX-Century American & European Paintings, Auction catalogue, February 26–27, 1947. New York: Parke-Bernet, 1947, lot 94, as The Cascade in Spring.
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. 576 (catalogue A, no. 679), as The Waterfall. (Hale concordance).
Lerner et al. 1974
Lerner, Abram et al. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. New York: Abrams, 1974, p. 88 ill. in color, 755 (fig. 111), as The Waterfall.
Bruner 1980
Bruner, Louise. "Religious Themes in Art." American Artist 44 (December 1980), p. 76 ill. in color, as The Waterfall.
Zilczer 1987
Zilczer, Judith. "Arthur B. Davies: The Artist as Patron." American Art Journal 19 (1987), pp. 73 ill. in b/w, 74 (fig. 20), as The Waterfall.
Peters 1990–I
Peters, Lisa N. "John H. Twachtman: The Torrent." In Ten American Painters, by William H. Gerdts, et al. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 1990. Exhibition catalogue, p. 167, as The Waterfall.
Sotheby's New York 2002–II
American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, December 4, 2002. New York: Sotheby's, 2002, lot 4 ill. in color, as The Waterfall.
Peters 2006–IV
Peters, Lisa N. "Catalogue." In John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter", by Lisa N. Peters. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Spanierman), pp. 188–89 ill. in color, as The Cascade in Spring.
Doyle 2013–I
European, American, Modern, and Contemporary Art. Auction catalogue, May 8, 2013. New York: Doyle, 2013, lot 266 ill. in color, as The Cascade in Spring.
Commentary

Here Twachtman featured a view looking northwest from the west of his Greenwich home, with Horseneck Brook and its falls situated on a diagonal that divides the composition. The result of recent runoff, the water in the brook has only begun to gather force; its flow is still meager and halting. Glimpses of green can be seen emerging from the mauve and sandy tones of the raw and otherwise bare ground

The title of this painting has changed a number of times. It was included in the artist’s estate sale as The Cascade in Spring. The buyer of the painting from the estate sale was identified in an article on the sale as M. Mott. Its next owner was the painter Arthur B. Davies (1862–1928), who worked with Twachtman on a cyclorama in Chicago about 1887 and probably remained in touch with him over the years.[1]

When the painting belonged to Davies it appears to have been referred to as The Brook, according to the recollections of Davies’s daughter-in-law in a letter of 1965.[2] When Davies died in 1928, his family sold the painting to Ferargil Galleries in New York. Over the next several years, the gallery lent the painting and referred to it as both The Waterfall and The Brook, but in 1935 the gallery gave the painting back to the Davies estate “in full settlement of all debts and obligations to date.”[3] The Davies family lent it to an exhibition in San Francisco the following year as The Brook. In 1947, when Davies’s widow Virginia was eighty-five, the family called on Ferargil again to help sell the painting, and it was included in a sale at Parke-Bernet that February, in which it was listed as The Waterfall.[4] However, the buyer of the painting was none other than Ferargil. In a letter to the Davies family, Frederic Newlin Price of Ferargil stated that the gallery had purchased the painting for $225, by contrast with the $2,500 it had first paid for the work, when it bought the painting from the Davies family in 1928. James Graham and Sons Gallery in New York purchased the painting from Ferargil. Graham held onto the painting until 1962, when the gallery sold it to the New York financier and collector Joseph Hirshhorn (1899–1981). Hirshhorn lived on John Street in Greenwich, Connecticut, near the house on Round Hill Road where Twachtman had lived and painted. Hirshhorn’s purchase of this work and of the painting now called Waterfall, Yellowstone (OP.1305), which Hirshhorn renamed Hemlock Pool: A Waterfall, reflected his taste both for modern American art and for paintings that he associated with his surroundings.

In 1966 Hirshhorn gave this painting and Waterfall, Yellowstone to the new Hirshhorn Museum, a part of the Smithsonian Institution that had been mandated in the 1930s but was not created until Hirshhorn helped pay for the construction of its building. The museum catalogued the painting as The Waterfall, and this name was associated with it until 2007, when its original title was restored.

[1]   This project, portraying the Civil War Battle of Shiloh, was financed by H. H. Gross and built adjacent to the B&O passenger depot on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The other artists who carried out the job included Charles Corwin, Warren Davis, Joseph P. Birren, Oliver Dennett Grover, and Frank C. Peyraud. See Bennard Perlman, The Lives, Loves, and Art of Arthur B. Davies (Albany: State University of New York, 1999), pp. 23–24.  Davies’s Landscape is illustrated in Perlman, p. 25. 

[2] Erica R. Davies (Mrs. Niles M. Davies Sr.) to Doreen Bolger, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 6, 1965, Artist File, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

[3] Frederick Newlin Price, Ferargil Galleries, New York, to Dr. Virginia Davies, Congers, New York, April 10, 1935, Artist File, Hirshhorn Museum.

[4] Frederic Newlin Price, Ferargil Galleries, New York, to Dr. Virginia Davies and Niles Davies, Congers, New York, [1947], Artist’s File, Hirshhorn Museum.