Catalogue Entry
In September Sunshine, Twachtman featured the front of his Greenwich home (its south facade), revealing alterations he made to it that are likely to have occurred between January 1892 and 1894–95, when he instituted another set of more dramatic changes. As indicated in the painting, by this time, the older section of house (at the right) had gained a second dormer on its east side (at the right), while balustrades framed the side-by-side dormers. This indicates that the roof had been lowered beyond them. The purpose of the balustrades was to lighten the building visually and create unity through their alignment with the edge of the roof on the new section of the house. These changes were probably concurrent with the removal of the steps leading up to the porch and its enclosure with a half-height wall, along with a new slanted awning that was longer and more graceful, breaking up the home’s linearity.
Twachtman chose to view his home from an especially complimentary angle. Showing only a partial view of it seen from a low, oblique angle, he stood closer to it than he had in his images of the north facade. In the scene, it recedes on a gentle curve, with the dormers and their balustrades forming rhythmic intervals.
The painting illustrates the comment made by Alfred Henry Goodwin in 1905 that the house was a “record of the romantic possibilities of dormer windows.” In a view of the south-facing exposure, Twachtman captured the glaring quality of the direct sunlight and its flattening effect on the walls of his home, which he had painted “a gentle rather than a blatant white,” as Goodwin noted.[1] In the painting the home appears as a shimmering shape, its architectural features softened. Framing his home between trees that arch over it, and masking the line between its two parts with foliage, Twachtman suggests that the dwelling was meant to be appreciated aesthetically, as a work of art.
September Sunshine is similar in palette and design to Autumn Afternoon (OP.922), which is also a view of the south facade. The two works were probably created at about the same time.
This was probably the work exhibited with the title of September Sunlight in the memorial exhibition of the artist’s work, held at Knoedler Galleries in January 1905. Reviewing the exhibition, the critic for the New York Times commented: “Almost all these paintings are marked by an intense peacefulness and rest, characteristics which charm city folk because of the contrast with the movement and haste of town life. Perhaps the most restful of all is the view of his home near Greenwich called ‘September Sunlight,’ with its broad masses of building and trees, its cool sunshine and delicate gradation of values.”[2]
By 1906 the painting had been purchased by Edward T. Stotesbury (1849–1938), a senior partner at the Drexel & Company banking house in Philadelphia, an associate of J. P. Morgan and one of the wealthiest men in America.[3] At some point in the 1920s, the painting was sold at Freeman auction house in Philadelphia, from which it was acquired by the Philadelphia businessman, art collector, and tenor vocalist John F. Braun (1867–1939) in the 1920s, who along with his wife, the musician Edith Evans Braun (1887–1976), owned additional works by the artist. From 1996 until 2005 the painting was part of the noted collection of American paintings owned by Margaret and Raymond Horowitz.
[1] Goodwin 1905, p. 628.
[2] New York Times 1905.
[3] The well-known architect Horace Trumbauer renovated the Stotesbury home on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia and designed their home, Brooklands, which was completed in 1915 in Springfield, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia.
- Museum website (collection.crystalbridges.org)