John H. Twachtman (1853-1902)

The following essay is adapted from the 1982 publication Dallas Collects American Paintings: Colonial to Early Modern: An Exhibition of Paintings from Private Collections in Dallas.

Well known for his subjective, soft-focus interpretations of landscape, Twachtman is ranked alternately in both the Impressionist and Tonalist schools. The nostalgic mood of his work relates to numerous other artists of the turn-of-the-century as does also his use of delicate tonalities and filtered light, yet his style in the end is distinctively personal and innovative. Born in Cincinnati, he studied there at the Ohio Mechanics Institute and then at the McMicken School of Design before joining Frank Duveneck and Henry Farny on a trip to Europe in 1875. He enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and adopted the bravura, darkly tonalist "Munich style." Back in the States, he exhibited with the Society of American Artists in 1878 and the National Academy of Design in 1879. Twachtman spent the years 1883-85 in Paris where he studied at the Academie Julian, met a group of American Impressionists living in Paris, and feel under the spell of Impressionist light, color, and spontaneity, although there is also a note in his work of Whistler's delicately muted compositions. In 1887 he returned to America, ranging up and down the east coast before settling in New York to teach at the Art Students League and at the Cooper Union while also spending time at a farm he bought in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 1897 he was instrumental in the formation of The Ten American Painters, a successionist group from the Society of American Artists. In later years before his sudden death in 1902, Twachtman's work was becoming increasingly abstract, approaching Monet's late style in his blurring of form and color.

 Steven A. Nash, "John H. Twachtman (1853-1902)", in Dallas Collects American Paintings: Colonial to Early Modern: an exhibition of paintings from private collections in Dallas, ed. Robert V. Rozelle (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1982), 103.

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