John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society
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Catalogue Entry

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Keywords
OP.1116
The Hidden Pool
1890s
Oil on canvas
22 x 27 1/8 in. (55.9 x 68.9 cm)
Stamped lower right: Twachtman Sale [1903 estate sale]
Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Gift of Charles Lang Freer (F1913.32a-c)
Exhibitions
1903–I American Art Galleries
American Art Galleries, New York, Sale of the Work of the Late John H. Twachtman, exhibition and auction, March 19–24, 1903, no. 73, as The Hidden Pool.
1913 American Art Galleries
American Art Galleries, New York, The Private Collection of American Paintings Formed by the Widely Known Amateur William T. Evans, Esq. of New York, March 31–April 2, 1913, no. 180, as The Hidden Pool.
1915–II Detroit Institute
Detroit Institute, First Annual Exhibition of Selected Paintings by American Artists, April 9–May 31, 1915, no. 36, as The Hidden Pool, lent by the Freer Collection.
Literature
New-York Tribune 1903–I
"Art Exhibitions: The Twachtman, Colman and Burritt Collections." New-York Tribune, March 21, 1903, p. 9, as The Hidden Pool.
New-York Tribune 1903–II
"Twachtman Pictures, $16,610: Former Pupils Applaud Sales of Favorite Canvases." New-York Tribune, March 25, 1903, p. 9, as The Hidden Pool.
Sun 1903–II
"Twachtman Pictures, $16,610." Sun (New York), March 25, 1903, p. 5, as The Hidden Pool.
New York Times 1903–III
"Twachtman Picture Sale." New York Times, March 25, 1903, p. 5, as The Hidden Pool.
American Art Association 1913
Private Collection Formed by the Widely Known Amateur William T. Evans. Auction catalogue, March 3–April 2, 1913. New York: American Art Association, 1913, lot 180, as The Hidden Pool.
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. 362 ill. in b/w (fig. 119); vol. 2, p. 564 (catalogue A, no. 478), as The Hidden Pool. (Hale concordance).
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, pp. 389, 496; vol. 2, p. 941 ill. in b/w (fig. 427), as The Hidden Pool.
Larkin 2001–I
Larkin, Susan G. The Cos Cob Art Colony: Impressionists on the Connecticut Shore. New York: National Academy of Design in association with Yale University, 2001. Exhibition catalogue (2001 National Academy of Design), pp. 199–200 ill. in color, as The Hidden Pool.
Peters 2006–III
Peters, Lisa N. "Twachtman and the Equipoise of Impressionism and Tonalism." In John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter", by Lisa N Peters. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Spanierman), pp. 73-74 ill. in color (fig. 65), 162, as The Hidden Pool.
Commentary

This image depicts Hemlock Pool, the rock-edged body of water on Horseneck Brook to the west of the artist’s home. Here the water in the brook seems at the ebb, and the lush trees and dry, sunlit grass suggest the hot summer. 

The Hidden Pool was purchased from Twachtman’s estate sale by the Brooklyn artist Edward A. Rorke, one of the sale’s major buyers. It was next acquired through the agent for Twachtman’s estate, Silas S. Dustin, by the important American art patron, William T. Evans, and included in the sale of Evans’s collection in 1913.

Selected Literature

From American Art Association 1913

Just without the border of a luxuriant green wood—its mass of foliage a dark, rich emerald hue—the sunshine breaks upon a riotous bloom of flowering grasses, massed golden-rod, and gray, rounded boulders with multicolored lucent incrustations all in a brilliant light and shimmering atmosphere.  High banks slope down and give away in the foreground to the general level of the land.  Between them, beyond the boulders and under the edge of the wood, an unsuspected pool is revealed, with suggestions of small, brownish rocks around its circular border.

From Larkin 2001

In The Hidden Pool (fig. 134), Twachtman depicted the brook engulfed by lush foliage. He increased the sense of intimacy by hiding the horizon line and enclosing the viewer in a private glade. Centering his vortex-like composition on the point where the brook emerges from the woods, he wove a nearly abstract tapestry of greens and yellows [p. 199].