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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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Additional Images
Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1888 (OP.810). Fig. 1. Twachtman, "'Below the Brooklyn Bridge, engraving by J. Clement from John Bogart, illustrating "Feats of Railway Engineering," Scribner's Magazine 4 (July 1888), p. 2.
Fig. 1. Twachtman, "'Below the Brooklyn Bridge, engraving by J. Clement from John Bogart, illustrating "Feats of Railway Engineering," Scribner's Magazine 4 (July 1888), p. 2.
Keywords
OP.810
Brooklyn Bridge
ca. 1888
Oil on panel
16 x 10 in. (40.6 x 25.4 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman
Location unknown
Provenance
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, by 1893;
Mr. Hurley, Brooklyn, 1910
Mrs. Thomas E. Gerrity, Mt. Vernon, New York, by 1924;
(American Art Galleries, New York, November 28, 1924, lot 53);
to (Kraushaar Gallery);
(American Art Association—Anderson Galleries, New York, November 15, 1929, lot 23);
to John R. Denaide;
(Closson Galleries, Cincinnati);
to Harry Leyman, Cincinnati, ca. 1930s.
Exhibitions
1893 World's Columbian Exposition
Department of Fine Arts, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, May 1–October 30, 1893, no. 1045, as Brooklyn Bridge.
Literature
Bogart 1888
Bogart, John. "Feats of Railway Engineering." Scribner's 4 (July 1888), p. 2 ill. in b/w, in engraving by J. Clement, as Brooklyn Bridge.
Stevens 1910
Stevens, Nina Spaulding. "A Notable Collection of American Paintings." Fine Arts Journal 22 (March 1910), p. 140 ill. in b/w, 156, as Brooklyn Bridge.
Clark 1921
Clark, Eliot. "The Art of John Twachtman." International Studio 72 (January 1921), p. lxxvi, as Brooklyn Bridge.
American Art Galleries 1924
Valuable Paintings: American and European Schools. Auction catalogue, November 28, 1924. New York: American Art Galleries, 1924, lot 53, as Brooklyn Bridge.
Clark 1924
Clark, Eliot. John Twachtman. New York: privately printed, 1924, pp. opp. 12 ill. in b/w, 33, as Brooklyn Bridge.
American Art Association—Anderson Galleries 1929–II
Oil Paintings and Water-Colors. Auction catalogue, November 15, 1929. New York: American Art Association—Anderson Galleries, 1929, lot 23, as Brooklyn Bridge.
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, p. 183 ill. in b/w (fig. 19); vol. 2, p. 435 (catalogue G, no. 80), as Brooklyn Bridge. (Hale concordance).
Rydell and Carr 1993
Rydell, Robert W., and Carolyn Kinder Carr. Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1993. Exhibition catalogue, p. 333 ill. in b/w, as Brooklyn Bridge.
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. 239; vol. 2, p. 754 ill. in b/w (fig. 223), as Brooklyn Bridge.
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), p. 76 ill. in b/w, as Brooklyn Bridge.
Commentary

Twachtman’s Brooklyn Bridge was reproduced with a caption of "Below the Brooklyn Bridge" in Scribner's Magazine in July 1888. Depicting the scene from under the bridge on the Manhattan side, Twachtman contrasted the solid cathedral-like piers with the arc of the suspended roadbed. In an enlarged foreground, boats and anchored barges are eye-level with the viewer. Thus, Twachtman accentuated the movement of the bridge as a unifier of what were then the independent cities of New York and Brooklyn. 

Exhibiting this work at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Twachtman acknowledged the significance of this painting in his oeuvre, even if it had been initially commissioned as an illustration. 

In 1910, Nina Spaulding Stevens described the painting, which is unlocated today: "Twachtman sat close under the first supporting pier which rises straight to the top of the canvas, and one sees the bridge disappear in the distance with a striking effect of perspective. This is painted in the grays which Twachtman loved so well and which he used as a master. He has achieved the effect of the strength and grace of that mighty structure with simplicity and seeming ease."

Selected Literature

From Clark 1921

The spectator shares with the painter the exhilaration of the moment, the feeling that each motive is a new discovery. Thus, in his little picture of Brooklyn Bridge, Twachtman has revealed the pictorial possibilities of modern mechanical construction, and a theme which might so temptingly have been used to parade the great engineering achievement of the New World and display with pride its imposing grandeur, Twachtman treats casually, with a sense of familiarity and with a discerning understanding of its aesthetic possibilities. Nevertheless, it is vividly graphic and descriptive.

From American Art Association—Anderson Galleries 1929–2

The arched structure of the bridge rises at left and spans the clear blue waters of the East River, animated with various craft, under a pale blue sky.