American Twachtman John landscapes oil paintings supply

John Twachtman
American Impressionist painter
born 1853 - died 1902

Student of: William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), Frank Duveneck (1848-1919).
Teacher of: Leon Kroll (1884-1974), Ernest Lawson (1873-1939).
Assistant to: William Merritt Chase (1849-1916)

twäktˈmən, 1853–1902, American landscape painter and etcher, b. Cincinnati.

John Henry Twachtman (1853-1902) was one of the leading American impressionist painters. His most characteristic work is marked by an extreme lightness of palette that approaches pure white.

John Twachtman was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Aug. 4, 1853. His parents were immigrants, and his father worked as a decorator of window shades, an occupation in which John joined him at the age of 14. John studied drawing in the evenings, but the most important influence on his artistic formation was Frank Duveneck, who had studied in Munich and settled in Cincinnati in 1873. When Duveneck returned to Munich, Twachtman went with him. John Twachtman studied with Ludwig Loefftz, and one of his fellow students was William Merritt Chase.

In 1877 Duveneck, Chase, and Twachtman went to Venice, a trip which was a most important artistic event in their lives. Twachtman sent two of his Italian pictures to the first exhibition of the Society of American Artists in 1878 and returned to the United States that same year. But in 1880 John Twachtman was back in Europe, teaching at Duveneck's famous school in Florence. That summer Twachtman went to Venice and probably met James McNeill Whistler, who may have influenced his etchings, as John Twachtman did his whole generation. In 1881 John Twachtman married, and during his wedding trip John Twachtman painted and etched with J. Alden Weir.- American Twachtman John landscapes oil paintings supply- Twachtman John American oil painting landscape –landscape oil painting, Twachtman John Bio by American landscape oil paintings supply of landscapes oil paintings Twachtman.

JOHN HENRY TWACHTMAN'S YOUTH

John Henry Twachtman was born in Cincinatti (USA) in 1853 as the son of German immigrants. Twachtman started his career decorating window shades and studied drawing at the Ohio Mechanics Institute and McMicken School of Design.

JOHN HENRY TWACHTMAN AS AN ARTIST

In 1875, Frank Duveneck, a friend and teacher, invited the young artist to accompany him to Munich. Twachtman readily adopted the characteristic dark palette and rapid, open brushwork of Munich colleagues. After refining his painting skills on a trip to Venice in 1877, John Twachtman returned to the United States and developed a forceful, realist manner, capturing the energy of city life in New York and Cincinnati.

Like many great painters, Twachtman was never fully appreciated or well known in his lifetime. His work, which went beyond the representation of things, had a searching, abstract quality that was poorly understood. Fellow painter Edward Simmons recalled walking up and down Fifth Avenue in New York with Twachtman, hoping to sell one of Twachtman's landscapes for $25.

Twachtman hungered after fame and fortune and was embittered by his failure to achieve them, even in his hometown. In Cincinnati, John Twachtman once complained, "A good many people, all of them supposed to be up in art matters, have seen my paintings, but I am convinced they care little for them. This is a very old foggied place and only one kind of art is considered good. The old Dusseldorf School comes in for its full share of honor."- American Twachtman John landscapes oil paintings supply- Twachtman John American oil painting landscape –landscape oil painting, Twachtman John Bio by American landscape oil paintings supply of landscapes oil paintings Twachtman.

Twachtman departed for Paris in 1883 with his wife and son to study with the popular teachers associated with the Academic Julian. Twachtman continued to improve his drawing skills, and the works from this period reflect an increasing interest in composition. The salon-size landscape painting "Arques-la-Bataille" (Metropolitan Museum of Art) represents the pinnacle of Twachtman's French period. Its stark composition and tonal palette reveal the influence of James McNeill Whistler as well as the flattened spaces and decorative patterns of Japanese art.

As seen in "Along the River, Winter" (High Museum of Art), Twachtman was especially fond of winter landscapes. John Twachtman explained to Weir in a letter, "We must have snow and lots of it. Never is nature more lovely than when it is snowing. Everything is so quiet and the whole earth seems wrapped in a mantle, all nature is hushed to silence."

Twachtman moved back to the United States in 1885 and, after living in various places, moved his family to Greenwich, Connetticut, in 1889 or 1890. Family life at his 17-acre estate in Greenwich provided the leading subject matter for his art through the next decade. John Twachtman returned to specific sites on the property and painted them repeatedly during different weather conditions and changing seasons, seeking to convey his personal reponse to the sensuous aspects of nature.

By the mid-1890s, Twachtman's career became fully identified with the Impressionist movement, and American critics often compared him to Monet. Twachtman's brush- work, however, usually differed from the broken strokes of other American Impressionists. John Twachtman varied his paint application from rich, tactile strokes to dry, chalky surfaces.

His palette brightened during the 1890s when John Twachtman often depicted close-up views of flowers, corners of the garden, and other favorite spots on the farm, as in "The White Bridge" Minneapolis Institute of Art) and "Waterfall, Blue Brook" (Cincinnati Art Museum).- American Twachtman John landscapes oil paintings supply- Twachtman John American oil painting landscape –landscape oil painting, Twachtman John Bio by American landscape oil paintings supply of landscapes oil paintings Twachtman.

By 1897, Twachtman became a founding member of "The Ten American Painters" (or "The Ten"), a group of artists who seceded from the Society of American Artists and exhibited together for the next 20 years. Of "The Ten," Weir, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf and Twachtman were united by their rejection of descriptive art in favor of more subjective, innovative interpretations of nature. Twachtman created some of his most bold and experimental works for inclusion in this group's landmark exhibitions.

Beginning in 1900, Twachtman spent his summers in the artist colony of Glouchester, Mass. A boldness and spontaneity is evident in his late Gloucester subjects, which are among the strongest and most aggressive works of his career.

In these paintings John Twachtman returned to the broadly brushed style of his Munich period and reintroduced black into his palette to capture the grittier images of life in Gloucester's commercial fishing docks. As in "Wild Cherry Tree" (Albright-Knox Art Gallery) or "Harbor View Hotel" (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), his use of daring compositions with simplified, geometric abstractions suggests his innate understanding of 20th century modernism.

JOHN HENRY TWACHTMAN'S DEATH

Twachtman, estranged from his family, was living in Gloucester when John Twachtman died suddenly in the summer of 1902, a bitter and lonely man. John Twachtman was buried in Gloucester.

Upon his death, his colleague Thomas Dewing recognized the artist's avant-garde spirit by describing him as the "most modern spirit, too modern, probably, to be fully recognized or appreciated at present; but his place will be recognized in the future."

Landscape painter John Henry Twachtman was one of the most original and modern artists of the late nineteenth century. Trained in Munich and Paris, and a member of the most advanced American artist groups of his day, Twachtman was apprised of the innovative directions in European and American art throughout his career.- American Twachtman John landscapes oil paintings supply- Twachtman John American oil painting landscape –landscape oil painting, Twachtman John Bio by American landscape oil paintings supply of landscapes oil paintings Twachtman.

The work of his Greenwich Period, for which John Twachtman is best known, was influenced by Impressionism and Tonalism, yet Twachtman's stylistic synthesis was unique. Often compared with Claude Monet and James McNeill Whistler, Twachtman developed an experimental technique to express the poetry and the changing emotional tenor of nature.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio to German immigrant parents, Twachtman found his first employment in the Breneman Brothers window shade factory where his father also worked. At age fifteen, John Twachtman enrolled as a part-time student in the School of Design at the Ohio Mechanics' Institute. In 1871, John Twachtman transferred to the McMicken School of Design where his classmates included Kenyon Cox, Joseph DeCamp, Robert Blum, Lewis Henry Meakin, and William Baer, all of whom achieved artistic prominence in their later careers.

Frank Duveneck, however, was the most important contact of Twachtman's Cincinnati years. Twachtman had known Duveneck through mutual ties in the Cincinnati German community, but the younger Twachtman came under the slightly older artist's influence when John Twachtman joined the evening class Duveneck taught at the Mechanics' Institute in 1874-75 on his return from four years of study at the Munich Royal Academy.

Duveneck invited Twachtman to paint in the studio John Twachtman shared with Henry Farny and the sculptor Frank Dengler, and in 1875 when Duveneck returned to Munich, Twachtman accompanied him. Enrolling in the Munich Royal Academy in the Fall of 1875, Twachtman studied under Ludwig von Loefftz, a painter of realist genre scenes. In the spring of 1875, Twachtman probably accompanied Duveneck to Paris to visit the annual Salon, and during the summer of 1876, John Twachtman visited the small nearby town of Polling, which had attracted a large community of artists including many American painters. American artists Charles Ulrich and Walter Shirlaw also spent time in Polling in the summer of 1876.

In the summer of 1877, Twachtman visited Polling again and then went with William Merritt Chase, an American colleague in Munich, and Duveneck to Venice where John Twachtman spent nine months. Returning to America in 1878, Twachtman briefly visited Cincinnati before going to New York.- American Twachtman John landscapes oil paintings supply- Twachtman John American oil painting landscape –landscape oil painting, Twachtman John Bio by American landscape oil paintings supply of landscapes oil paintings Twachtman.

There John Twachtman participated in the first exhibition of the Society of American Artists, which elected him to membership in 1880. During his time in New York, Twachtman lived in the Benedict building on Washington Square, painted the city's harbors in a bold realist style, and participated in the activities of the Tile Club. Many important contacts were made in Tile Club gatherings including artists J. Alden Weir and R. Swain Gifford.

Twachtman returned to Cincinnati in the fall of 1879 to teach at the Women's Art Association, remaining in Cincinnati through the summer of 1880. In October John Twachtman sailed for Venice where John Twachtman joined the Duveneck "boys" and may have met Whistler who had become close to Duveneck and Otto Bacher during the summer. By November, Whistler had returned to London, and Twachtman joined Duveneck as an instructor at the school Duveneck had started in Florence.

After his marriage in 1881 in Cincinnati to the artist Martha Scudder, Twachtman again visited Europe, this time stopping in England, Holland, Belgium, and Germany. In Holland, John Twachtman stayed with J. Alden Weir and his brother John Ferguson Weir, painting in Dordrecht and surrounding communities. During this trip, John Twachtman also met the Dutch Hague School painter Anton Mauve who gave him encouragement and advice. During this trip Twachtman also became familiar with the work of the French painter of peasants, Jules Bastien-LePage.

In 1883, Twachtman went to Paris, continuing his studies at the Académie Julian under Gustave Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. Fellow students included American artists Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, Frank W. Benson, Edmund C. Tarbell, and Robert Reid, all of whom became lifelong friends. During the summers in France, Twachtman painted near Honfleur and Dieppe, and in Italy where John Twachtman visited Duveneck and Blum. His work changed at this time; his palette remained low-key, but tones became more closely modulated and his brushwork fluid and not apparent.

Following his return to America in 1886, John Twachtman went to Chicago where John Twachtman worked on a cyclorama. During the late 1880's, John Twachtman spent time in Branchville, Connecticut, near J. Alden Weir's home, and worked extensively in pastel. In 1889, Twachtman and Weir held a joint exhibition and sale of their works at the Ortgies Gallery in New York, and four years later, the American Art Gallery featured their work in a comparative exhibition with that of Monet and Paul Besnard.- American Twachtman John landscapes oil paintings supply- Twachtman John American oil painting landscape –landscape oil painting, Twachtman John Bio by American landscape oil paintings supply of landscapes oil paintings Twachtman.

Twachtman produced illustrations for "Scribner's" from 1888 to 1893, and in 1889, John Twachtman began to teach at the Art Students League. These activities provided the income with which John Twachtman purchased a house and 17 acres of land in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1890. During the next decade, this property was Twachtman's primary subject matter.

Although John Twachtman continued his interest in soft tonal qualities, Twachtman turned to an Impressionist technique during his Greenwich Period. His introduction to the style came not only through seeing the work of French painters, but also through friends such as Theodore Robinson. An interest in structured compositions and a strong sense of design also become apparent in Greenwich paintings.

The titles of oil painting old master John Twachtman