John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society
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Keywords
OP.1412
Waterfront Scene—Gloucester
Alternate titles: Gloucester; The Red Houses
ca. 1900
Oil on canvas
16 x 22 in. (40.6 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman–
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Raymond J. and Margaret Horowitz (2015.2401)
Exhibitions
1932 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum, New York, Exhibition of Paintings by American Impressionists and Other Artists of the Period 1880–1900, January 18–February 28, 1932, no. 109, as The Red Houses, lent by Walter A. Putnam.
1968 Spanierman
Ira Spanierman, New York, John Henry Twachtman, 1853–1902: An Exhibition of Paintings and Pastels, February 3–24, 1968, no. 23, ill., as Gloucester, lent by Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Horowitz.
1973 Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, American Impressionist and Realist Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz, April 19–June 3, 1973, no. 21, pp. 70–71 ill. in color, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
1987 Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, Twachtman in Gloucester: His Last Years, 1900–1902, May 12–June 13, 1987. (Exhibition catalogue: Boyle 1987); (Exhibition catalogue: Gerdts 1987); (Exhibition catalogue: Hale 1987); (Exhibition catalogue: Peters 1987), no. 2, pp. 40–41, 52–53 ill. in color, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
1999 National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., American Impressionism and Realism: The Margaret and Raymond Horowitz Collection, January 24–May 9, 1999. (Cikovsky 1999), no. 46, pp. 144–45 ill., in color, 191, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
Literature
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. 577 (catalogue A, no. 688), as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester. (Hale concordance).
Kramer 1973
Kramer, Hilton. "American Paintings in 'The Picnic Spirit.'" New York Times, April 29, 1973, p. 21 ill. in b/w, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
Gerdts 1984
Gerdts, William H. American Impressionism. New York: Abbeville, 1984, p. 190 ill. in b/w, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
Gerdts 1987
Gerdts, William H. "John Twachtman and the Artistic Colony in Gloucester at the Turn of the Century." In Twachtman in Gloucester: His Last Years, 1900–1902, by John Douglass Hale, Richard J. Boyle, and William H. Gerdts. New York: Universe and Ira Spanierman Gallery, 1987. Exhibition catalogue (1987 Spanierman), p. 41, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
Bolger 1990
Bolger, Doreen. "American Artists and the Japanese Print: J. Alden Weir, Theodore Robinson, and John H. Twachtman." In American Art around 1900: Lectures in Memory of Daniel Fraad, ed. Doreen Bolger. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1990, p. 17 ill. in b/w, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
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, pp. 478, 481; vol. 2, p. 1000 ill. in b/w (fig. 500), as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
Cikovsky 1999
Cikovsky, Nicolai. American Impressionism and Realism: The Margaret and Raymond Horowitz Collection. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1999 (1999 National Gallery of Art), pp. 144–45 ill. in color, 191, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
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. 162 col. ill. in color, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
Larkin 2001–I
Larkin, Susan G. The Cos Cob Art Colony: Impressionists on the Connecticut Shore. New York: National Academy of Design in association with Yale University, 2001. Exhibition catalogue (2001 National Academy of Design), pp. 127–28 ill. in b/w, as Waterfront Scene—Gloucester.
Commentary

Twachtman portrayed Waterfront Scene—Gloucester in one of the charcoal sketches after works he rendered in Gloucester in the summer of 1900 that he sent to his son Alden (D.1401), who was in Bemis, Maine, from late June through September. On the back of the sketch Twachtman wrote: “16 x 24 / houses red and gray.” However, the buildings appear to be sheds for commercial fish processing rather than domestic structures. They are probably the very buildings that Twachtman featured purely as background shapes in images of Gloucester Harbor from a greater distance, such as Gloucester Schooner (OP.1401) and Drying Sails (OP. 1402).  

As in Gloucester, Fishermen's Houses (OP.1411), here Twachtman eliminated interim tonal values, adopting a vivid palette primarily of alizarin and lavender. A critic reviewing his 1901 exhibition in Chicago referred to his new chromatic approach, stating: "He is an impressionist, and paints in a high key, with no attention to detail, striving for luminosity and atmosphere, which he successfully renders in a way that is beautiful to some and not to others."[1]   

The first-known owner of this work was Walter A. Putnam, who lent it to the exhibition of American Impressionist art held at the Brooklyn Museum in 1932. There it was exhibited as The Red Houses. 

[1] Rothery 1901–I. 

Selected Literature

From Larkin 2001

Both oils [Waterfront Scene—Gloucester and Old Mill at Cos Cob, OP.1502] depict a cluster of commercial buildings on a New England waterfront.  In both, the artist eliminated detail, emphasized the geometric structure of the architecture, and used color to unify his composition. The emotional content of the two paintings is very different, however.  Neither includes a figure, but two rowboats and a sailboat suggest human presence at the Lower Landing. The scale of the Cos Cob buildings is small, domestic, and inviting; their counterparts in Gloucester are sprawling, industrial, and forbidding. The warm-hued buildings and their brilliant reflections in Cos Cob convey a sense of well-being in contrast to the somber grays, mauves, and black in the Gloucester work [p. 127].