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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.1132
Waterfall
Alternate titles: A Waterfall; The Waterfall
Late 1890s
Oil on canvas
30 1/8 x 25 1/8 in. (76.5 x 63.8 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman–
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of George A. Hearn, 1909 (09.25.2)
Provenance
George A. Hearn, New York, by 1901;
gift to present collection, 1909.
Exhibitions
1901 Lotos Club
Lotos Club, New York, Collection of George A. Hearn, April 1901, as A Waterfall.
1907–I Lotos Club
Lotos Club, New York, Exhibition of Paintings by the Late John H. Twachtman, January 5–31, 1907, no. 21, as A Waterfall, lent by Mr. George A. Hearn.
1939 Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, Presenting the Work of John H. Twachtman, American Painter, November 5–28, 1939, no. 15, as Waterfall.
1945 Lyman Allyn Museum
Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut, Work in Many Media by Men of the Tile Club, March 11–April 23, 1945, no. 152, as Waterfall.
1972 Queens County Art and Cultural Center
Queens County Art and Cultural Center, New York, 19th-Century American Landscape, November 10–December 10, 1972, no. 25, as Waterfall. Traveled to: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, January-February 1973; Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, New York, March-April 1973.
Literature
Art Interchange 1901–III
"Lotos Club Exhibition." Art Interchange 46 (May 1901), p. 107, as Waterfall.
Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1909
"Principal Accessions." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 4 (March 1909), p. 53 ill. in b/w, as A Waterfall.
Curran 1910
Curran, Charles C. "The Art of John H. Twachtman." Literary Miscellany 3 (Winter 1910), p. 76 ill. in b/w, as The Waterfall.
Metropolitan Museum of Art 1913
Metropolitan Museum of Art. George A. Hearn Gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the City of New York and Arthur Hoppock Hearn Memorial Fund. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1913, p. 90 ill. in b/w, as The Waterfall.
Clark 1919
Clark, Eliot. "John Henry Twachtman." Art in America 7 (April 1919), p. 135 ill. in b/w, as The Waterfall.
Bryant 1921
Bryant, Lorinda Munson. American Pictures and Their Painters. New York: John Lane, 1921, p. 182 ill. in b/w, as The Waterfall.
Mather 1946
Mather, Frank Jewett, Jr. "The Expanding Arena." Magazine of Art 39 (November 1946), p. 306 ill. in b/w, as The Waterfall.
Metropolitan Museum of Art 1950
Metropolitan Museum of Art. American Painters of the 20th Century Represented in the Collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1950, pp. xxiii, 27 ill. in b/w, as The Waterfall.
Gardner 1957
Gardner, Albert Ten Eyck. A Concise Catalogue of the American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1957, p. 46, as A Waterfall.
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. 575 (catalogue A, no. 671), as Waterfall. (Hale concordance).
Burke 1980
Burke, Doreen Bolger. American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 3 Volumes. A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born between 1846 and 1864. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980, pp. 150 ill. in b/w, 151, as Waterfall.
Prebus 1994
Prebus, Cynthia H. "Transitions in American Art and Criticism: The Formative Years of Early American Modernism, 1895–1905," Ph.D dissertation. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers, The State University, 1994, p. 490 ill. in b/w, as Waterfall.
Larkin 1996
Larkin, Susan G. "'A Regular Rendezvous for Impressionists:' The Cos Cob Art Colony 1882–1920." Ph.D. dissertation, 1996. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microforms, 1996, pp. xi, 105, 344 ill. in b/w (3.22), as Waterfall.
Commentary

In this view of Horseneck Falls, Twachtman's vantage point was on an upward diagonal from the west side of the brook to the embankment, where he built a studio in the late 1890s. It is possible that the shape on the upper right, created partly of bare canvas, represents a glimpse of this structure, which he depicted in only one work, My Summer Studio (OP.948). Twachtman’s viewpoint encompasses more of the surrounding landscape here than in works in the series in which he enlarged the scale of the falls in relation to the picture plane, such as The Waterfall (OP.1138).

This painting was probably acquired directly from Twachtman’s estate by the New York merchant George A. Hearn (1835–1913). Hearn owned it by 1907, when he lent it to the exhibition of Twachtman’s work at the Lotos Club. A trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hearn gave the painting to the museum in 1909. The museum’s 1909 bulletin reported, “Mr. George A. Hearn has given the Museum two pictures, ‘A Waterfall,’ by J. H. Twachtman . . . The Museum has not hitherto owned a picture by Twachtman and the absence of his work from the collection has been keenly felt by the great number of admirers of this sincere and sensitive painter. They will undoubtedly be satisfied with the picture which Mr. Hearn has given, which shows the artist at his best.”

Selected Literature

From Bryant 1921

We have often stood beside cascades like this very "Waterfall" (fig. 136), Metropolitan Museum of Art, and watched the dancing stream slip over and around the obstructing ledges of rock on its way to the pool below, but not until Mr. Twachtman touched it with his vitalising, cool, grey-blue hue did we feel, with Goethe, that, "Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose."

From Mather 1946

A few slashes of gray, blue, and white suggest the plunge of the torrent, its weight, its modulated speed, almost its ultimate erosive effect. All his sense of substance at work is established by the slightest difference of pale tints. It is a marvel of execution. The weaving of pale blues, grays, and whites has a sort of spectral beauty of its own, independent of what it represents, but such austere sumptuousness is merely incidental in this or in any Twachtman, a by-product of simple truth telling.