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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Catalogue Entry

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Keywords
OP.527
An Early Winter
ca. 1883
Oil on canvas
17 x 14 in. (43.2 x 35.6 cm)
Curtis Galleries, Minneapolis, Myron Kunin Collection of American Art
Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art
Exhibitions
1913 American Art Galleries
American Art Galleries, New York, The Private Collection of American Paintings Formed by the Widely Known Amateur William T. Evans, Esq. of New York, March 31–April 2, 1913, no. 12, as An Early Winter.
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. 14, as An Early Winter, shown only in New York. Traveled to: Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut, July 13–October 29, 2006.
Literature
American Art Association 1913
Private Collection Formed by the Widely Known Amateur William T. Evans. Auction catalogue, March 3–April 2, 1913. New York: American Art Association, 1913, lot 12, as An Early Winter.
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. 512 (catalogue G, no. 735), as An Early Winter. (Hale concordance).
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. 163; vol. 2, p. 696 ill. in b/w (fig. 157), as An Early Winter.
Christie's, New York 1997
Important American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, December 4, 1997. New York: Christie's, 1997, lot 22 ill. in color, as An Early Winter.
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. 106–7 ill. in color, as An Early Winter.
Commentary

This painting was possibly the work shown as Winter at the Society of American Artists in 1883. Clarence Cook wrote in the Art Amateur: "Mr. Twachtmann shows best in his small landscape, 'Winter' . . . .  the artist has made much of little, though even here we doubt if his work will be so suggestive to laymen as it will be to his brother artists.”[1]

The locale is most certainly the suburbs of Cincinnati, featuring the tall, narrow homes that were a carryover from the urban environment, despite the openness of the countryside. Twachtman gently structured the arrangement to create a sense of harmony between the natural and human-made elements of the scene, using the calligraphic lines of trees to mediate between the sinuous pattern of the bare ground, where spring grass has already emerged, and the contours of buildings. His thin paint application and closely modulated tones anticipate his French period style, representing a departure from Bloody Run (OP.507), also a snow scene, which is dated 1882.

The first owner of the work was Twachtman's childhood friend and former classmate from Cincinnati's McMicken School of Design, the artist William J. Baer (1860–1941), who was well known for miniature paintings in the 1890s. Baer sold the painting to the collector William T. Evans, and it was included in the sale of Evans's collection in 1913. 

[1] Cook 1883.

Selected Literature

From American Art Association 1913

Over a low, uneven countryside the grass is still a fresh green in a meadow where the hollows have been filled with an early drifting snow. Across the background a ridge of high hills, wooded and dark for the most part, reveals one broad field on a steep slope, which is snow-covered, with patches of its green grass coat apeparing here and there. In front of the hill is a group of gray buildings with snow on their roofs, from the chimney of one of them a line of smoke curling skyward in the wind. Before them two trees retain a few of their leaves. The air is filled with a fine drifting snow.