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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.1424
On the Ways
ca. 1900
Oil on panel
4 1/2 x 5 3/4 in. (11.4 x 14.6 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman
Private collection
Provenance
(American Art Galleries, New York, Twachtman estate sale, March 24, 1903, no. 78);
to H. A. Pomeroy;
Mrs. William H. Bender, Bronxville, New York;
to (Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, October 27, 1977, lot 43);
(S. K. T. Galleries, by 1978);
to private collection, 1980;
to (Sotheby's, New York, April 23, 2015, lot 89).
to (Thomas Colville Fine Art, Guilford, Connecticut);
to present collection, 2015.
Exhibitions
1901 Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago, Exhibition of the Works of John H. Twachtman, January 8–27, 1901, no. 47, as On the Ways.
1901–I Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Art Museum, Exhibition of Sixty Paintings by Mr. John H. Twachtman, Formerly Resident in Cincinnati, April 12–May 16, 1901, no. 21, as On the Ways.
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. 78, as On the Ways.
Literature
Sun 1903–II
"Twachtman Pictures, $16,610." Sun (New York), March 25, 1903, p. 5, as On the Ways.
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. 506 (catalogue G, nos. 689a and 689b), as On the Ways. (Hale concordance).
Sotheby Parke Bernet 1977–II
American 19th- and 20th-Century Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, October 27, 1977. New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1977, lot 43 ill. in b/w, as On the Ways.
Sotheby's New York 2015
American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, April 23, 2015. New York: Sotheby's, 2015, lot 89 ill. in color, as On the Ways.
Commentary

Rendered on a cigar box top, On the Ways is not featured in the charcoal sketches in which Twachtman recorded paintings he produced in Gloucester in the summer of 1900. However, the work was definitely rendered that summer, as it was included in the artist’s 1901 exhibitions in Chicago (January) and Cincinnati (April–May). In Chicago, the painting must have been among the works described by a reviewer who stated that the show included: “a dozen or more . . . smaller pictures—impressions quickly set down, retaining all the charm of a sketch.”[1] On the Ways may have been also caught the attention of another critic who stated that Twachtman’s images of boats in harbors retained "the fresh-colored paint on their hulls in a way that would seem short of miraculous to a Chicago River pilot.”[2]

The painting was included in Twachtman’s 1903 estate sale, from which it sold for $70 to H. Pomeroy, as reported in newspaper accounts.

[1] Chicago Times Herald 1900.

[2] Chicago Post 1901.