John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society
Catalogue Entry
I.303
Under the Iron Pier
Alternate titles: Under the Iron Pier, Coney Island; Under the Pier, Coney Island
1879–80
[medium and support unknown]
12 x 14 in. (30.5 x 35.6 cm)
Provenance
Exhibitions
Wentworth Manor, Montclair, New Jersey, American Paintings: Collection of William T. Evans, February 1911, no. 144, as Under the Iron Pier, Coney Island.
Literature
Bishop, William. "To Coney Island." Scribner's Monthly 20 (July 1880), p. 362 ill. in b/w (in wood engraving), as Under the Iron Pier.
Auction catalogue, March 16, 1917. New York: American Art Association, 1917, lot 24, as Under the Iron Pier.
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. 481 (Catalogue G, nos. 464 and 465), as Under the Iron Pier. (Hale concordance).
Commentary
The work depicted by Twachtman for this illustration was one of three by him that were reproduced in wood engravings in William Bishop's “To Coney Island,” published in Scribner’s Monthly in July 1880.[1] See Coney Island: From Brighton Pier (OP.314) and Dunes, Back of Coney Island (OP.315). Depicted here is the one-hundred-foot-long Iron Pier, in West Brighton, constructed in 1878–79 as a landing for steamboats traveling back and forth to Manhattan. Twachtman's view is from beneath the pier looking toward the pleasure park, where a pavilion with a flag flying from its tower can be seen.
The original work, presumably an oil painting, belonged to William T. Evans by 1911.
[1] Bishop 1880.
