John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society
Catalogue Entry
P.807
Dockside Scene
Alternate title: The Pier
ca. 1889
Pastel on paper
12 x 10 in. (30.5 x 25.4 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman –
Provenance
private collection;
to private collection, Hurley, New York;
Exhibitions
Adams Davidson Gallery, Washington, D.C., 100 Years of American Drawings and Watercolors, 1870–1970, September–October 1974, as Dockside Scene.
Literature
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. 591 (catalogue A, no. 1012), as The Pier. (Hale concordance).
Commentary
When Twachtman exhibited examples of his Newport pastels in the fourth exhibition of the Society of Painters in Pastel, held May 1890, a critic for the New York Times observed that he had used pastel to “sketch” rather than to "draw,” stating that his “delightful marines” were “touched in with spirit, but not made tedious.”[1] This is an apt description of this image, which Twachtman rendered with quickly drawn lines and color created by a combination of his crayons, rubbed against the surface, and the paper itself.
This work was part of a group of pastels that belonged to the Art Students League, probably having been given by the artist during his years there as a prominent and popular teacher.
[1] New York Times 1890.