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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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Additional Images
The Back Road, 1890s (OP.901). Verso: OP.901, The Back Road.
Verso: OP.901, The Back Road.
The Back Road, 1890s (OP.901). OP.901, The Back Road, detail, showing signature.
OP.901, The Back Road, detail, showing signature.
Keywords
OP.901
The Back Road
1890s
Oil on canvas
30 x 22 in. (76.2 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman–
Location unknown
Provenance
Childe Hassam, by 1915;
Candace Catherine Stimson, New York;
to (Milch);
(Knoedler, by 1950);
(ACA Heritage Gallery, New York);
estate of Richard Glins, Hamilton, Ohio;
to private collection;
to (Leslie Hindman Auctions, Chicago, May 24, 2018, lot 30).
Exhibitions
1901–I Cincinnati Art Museum probably
Cincinnati Art Museum, Exhibition of Sixty Paintings by Mr. John H. Twachtman, Formerly Resident in Cincinnati, April 12–May 16, 1901, no. 7, as The Back Road.
1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition
Department of Fine Arts, San Francisco, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, February 20–December 4, 1915, no. 4075, as The Back Road, lent by Childe Hassam, Esq.
Literature
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. 486 (catalogue G, nos. 509, 510, 511a, and 511b), as The Back Road. (Hale concordance).
Heritage 2015
American Art. Auction catalogue, May 2, 2015. Dallas: Heritage Auctions, 2015, lot 68122, as The Back Road.
Hindman 2018
American and European Art. Auction catalogue, May 24, 2018. New York: Hindman, 2018, lot 30 ill. in color, as The Back Road.
Commentary

Rendered with short, staccato strokes and a palette of complementary hues, The Back Yard seems closer to the manner of Childe Hassam than Twachtman. In fact, the painting's first-known owner was Hassam. The painting—presumably the work with this title included in Twachtman’s 1901 exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum—was lent by Hassam in 1915 to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco.

After Hassam, the painting was in the collection of Candace Catherine Stimson (1869–1944), a granddaughter of Candace Wheeler (1827–1933), an artist and design innovator, and Lewis Atterbury Stimson (1844–1917)—her brother was the statesman and politician Henry Stimson (1867–1950). Candace Stimson, an 1892 graduate of Wellesley College, lived in New York City and remained single. She sold the painting to Milch Galleries at some point before her death in 1945.