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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.1165
Hayrick
Alternate titles: A Neighbor's Barn; Hay Stack; My Neighbor's Barn; My Painter Neighbor's Barn
ca. 1892–93
Oil on canvas
22 x 30 in. (55.9 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman
Private collection
Provenance
(Macbeth, by 1919);
Reverend Dr. W. S. Rainsford, New York, 1919;
to (Macbeth);
to John K. Newman, New York, 1919;
to (American Art Association—Anderson Galleries, New York, December 6, 1935, Newman sale, lot 11);
to High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Friends of the Art purchase (35.9) 1935;
to (Sotheby's, New York, May 19, 2004, lot 23);
to present collection.
Exhibitions
1893 American Art Galleries probably
American Art Galleries, New York, Paintings, Pastels, and Etchings by J. Alden Weir, J. H. Twachtman, Claude Monet, and Paul Albert Besnard, by May 4–mid-November 1893, no. 13, as My Neighbor's Barn.
1893 St. Botolph Club probably
St. Botolph Club, Boston, Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Messrs. Weir and Twachtman, November 27–December 9, 1893, no. 16, as My Neighbor's Barn.
1894 Buffalo Society of Artists probably
Third Annual Exhibition of the Buffalo Society of Artists, New York, Society of Artists Exhibition, April 2–21, 1894, as Hay Stack.
1894 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts probably
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Sixty-Fourth Annual Exhibition, December 17, 1894–January 23, 1895, no. 296, as A Neighbor's Barn.
1901–I Durand-Ruel
Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, Paintings and Pastels by John H. Twachtman, March 4–16, 1901.
1972 Agnes Scott College
Agnes Scott College, Dalton Gallery, Atlanta, Exhibition of 19th- and 20th-Century American Paintings, October–December 1972, as Hayrick.
1973 Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, A Sense of Place: The Artist and the American Land, September 25–October 28, 1973, no. 391, vol. 2, pp. 42 ill. in b/w, 70, as Hayrick.
1981 High Museum of Art
High Museum of Art, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington, American Landscape Paintings: Selections from The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, opened September 15, 1981, no. 28, p. 29 ill. in b/w, as Hayrick. Traveled to: Anchorage Historical and Fine Arts Museum, November 2, 1981–January 3, 1982; Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, February 1–March 15, 1982; R. W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana, April 4–May 16, 1982; Cheney Cowles Memorial Museum, Spokane, Washington, September 1–October 13, 1982; Beaumont Art Museum, Texas, November 5–December 19, 1982; Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin, January 15–February 28, 1983; Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois, March 13–April 24, 1983; Wichita Falls Museum and Art Center, Texas.
Literature
Boston Herald 1893 probably
"The Fine Arts: Two Radical Impressionists at the St. Botolph Club." Boston Herald, December 3, 1893, p. 24, as My Painter Neighbor's Barn.
Boston newspaper, unidentified 1893 probably
[unknown title]. unidentified Boston newspaper, ca. November 1893, as My Painter Neighbor's Barn.
Buffalo Commercial 1894 probably
"Society of Artists: Third Exhibition at the Fine Arts Academy." Buffalo Commercial, April 2, 1894, p. 8, as Hay Stack.
Buffalo Courier 1894 probably
"Among the Pictures: Society of Artists' Annual Exhibition." Buffalo Courier, April 1, 1894, p. 6, as Hay Stack.
Walker 1895–I probably
"Fine Arts: The Pennsylvania Academy Exhibition." Walker, Sophia Antoinette. Independent 47 (January 3, 1895), p. 19, as A Neighbor's Barn.
Art Interchange 1901–I
Art Interchange 63 (April 1901), p. 87.
New York Evening Post 1901–I
"Art News." New York Evening Post, March 5, 1901, p. 4.
American Art Association—Anderson Galleries 1935–II
The J. K. Newman Collection of Important Paintings by American and French XIX–XX Century Artists. Auction catalogue, December 6, 1935. New York: American Art Association—Anderson Galleries, 1935, 11 ill. in b/w, as Hayrick.
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. 1, p. 331 ill. in b/w; vol. 2, p. 552 (catalogue A, no. 248), as Hayrick. (Hale concordance).
Gussow 1972
Gussow, Alan. A Sense of Place: The Artist and the American Land. New York: Friends of the Earth/Seabury, 1972, p. 42 ill. in b/w, as Hayrick.
Chambers 1975
Chambers, Bruce W. The High Museum of Art: A Bicentennial Catalogue. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1975, p. 123, as Hayrick.
Morrin and Zafran 1981
Morrin, Peter, and Eric Zafran. American Landscape Paintings: Selections from the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1981. Exhibition catalogue, p. 29 ill. in b/w, as Hayrick.
Larson, Hoopes, and Peet 1994
Larson, Judy L., Donelson Hoopes and Phyllis Peet. American Paintings at the High Museum of Art. New York: Hudson Hills, 1994, pp. 104, 114, 116, 120–21 ill. in color, 128, 146, 154, 180–81, 208 ill. in b/w, as Hayrick.
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. 348; vol. 2, p. 880 ill. in b/w (fig. 366), as Hayrick.
Sotheby's New York 2004–I
American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, May 19, 2004. New York: Sotheby's, 2004, lot 23 ill. in color, as Hayrick.
Peters 2021–II
Peters, Lisa N. Life and Art: The Greenwich Paintings of John Henry Twachtman. Cos Cob, Conn.: Greenwich Historical Society, 2021. Exhibition catalogue (2022 Greenwich Historical Society), pp. 51 ill. in color (fig. 34), 52, as Hayrick.
Commentary

In a copy of the catalogue for the 1893 American Art Galleries exhibition of works by Twachtman and Julian Alden Weir, shown along with paintings by French artists, Claude Monet and Paul-Albert Besnard, My Neighbor’s Barn (no. 13) was accompanied by a handwritten annotation: “snow on barn and haystack, cloudy.”[1] No other extant paintings by Twachtman fit this description as well as Hayrick. The painting probably portrays the property of Twachtman’s neighbor to the north, Theodosius F. Secor (1809–1901), who moved to Greenwich in 1882. In the foreground, a slightly misshapen haystack is encircled by footprints that lead to the barn, where a sled is in front of the door. Loose hay is on the ground in front of the haystack. It was probably dropped by the homeowners after removing dry hay from the stack to feed horses in the barn.

The composition is asymmetrically balanced, with the top of the haystack echoed in the peak of the home’s roof, its edge repeated in the left side of the barn’s roof. Despite the presence of the haystack, the setting is simple and domestic rather than a broader farmscape.

My Neighbor's Barn was among a small number of works by Twachtman and Weir sent on to the St. Botolph Club in November–December of the year. In a review in the Boston Herald, a critic referred to the painting as"My Painter Neighbor's Barn, describing it as a work of "honest simplicity." Twachtman appears to have again exhibited the painting as My Neighbor’s Barn in 1894 and 1901. It was not mentioned specifically in reviews of the 1894 annual of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, but one critic commented that Twachtman’s “five outdoor pictures [in the exhibition were] all in the same manner, painted in and scratched out probably with a palette knife.”[4] In 1901 the painting was in Twachtman’s solo exhibition at Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York. No catalogue was published for the show, but two reviewers mentioned the work. One wrote in the Art Interchange that Twachtman’s two best works on view were “the ‘Torrent’ (OP.1136), a vividly rendered stream of falling water, and a snow scene, remarkable for its simplicity and poetic charm for so prosaic a theme—nothing but a country barn, with a huge hayrick, covered with snow. He has a penchant for snow scenes, with their subdued white, and brawling streams, wrapt in a pale blue, misty atmosphere.”[5] Another commented in the New York Evening Post that in Twachtman’s work, one is always “conscious of an aesthetic intention, and that is a thing to be thankful for when so much that is matter of fact and prosaic creeps into the more sensitive things into the corners, if not out altogether. A group of barns with a haystack alongside, standing in a waste of snow, mellowed slightly by the wan sunlight . . . . linger longest in the memory unstimulated by a catalogue.”[6]

The file on this painting when it was in the collection of the High Museum includes a Western Union telegram, dated December 7, 1943, in which the museum director, Walter C. Hill wrote: “Attended Newman American Art Sale Tonight and Bought Twachtman Hay Rick one thousand and Weir In Shadow Four Hundred . . .”[7]

[1]  New-York Historical Society library, New York.

[2]  New York Times 1893–IV.

[3] New York Times 1893–IV.

[4] Philadelphia Times 1894.

[5] Art Interchange 1901–I.

[6] New York Evening Post–I.

[7] Walter C. Hill, December 5, 1943, telegram to Lewis P. Skidmore, director, High Museum of Art, archives, High Museum of Art, Atlanta. 

Selected Literature
Larson, Hoopes, and Peet 1994
The subject Twachtman chose for Hayrick immediately brings to mind Monet's Haystack pictures . . . Twachtman was probably aware of Monet's experiments in this vein when he painted Hayrick. Rather than imitating Monet's example, however, he merely appropriated the motif. Hayrick is not a close approximation of the light of nature, nor does it produce the optical sensations of color to which French Impressionism aspired. Twachtman's aim seems to have been more abstract—to create a mood through tonal painting that appeals to the mind even more than to the eye. His choice of this winter scene, like so many others in his oeuvre, is a pretext for a discourse on conceptual values of paint itself.  In this, Twachtman, more than any of his colleagues who emraced the Impressionist aesthetic, comes close to the modernist sensibility which holds that the true subject of a painting is the physical presence of the work of art itself, and not the incidental thematic content [add page].