A Painter's Painter

Curator: Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D.
July 13 to October 29, 2006
 

Organized in collaboration with Spanierman Gallery’s long-standing project to complete a catalogue raisonné of the art of John Twachtman, this exhibition and the catalogue accompanying it provide a new and intriguing look at Twachtman’s identity as an artist and his art in the context of his era. The show, curated by Dr. Lisa N. Peters, includes both well-known works and many that have never or rarely been on view. Building on the monographic approach that she took in the catalogue for the 1999–2000 exhibition John Twachtman: American Impressionist , organized by the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, Peters has taken the opportunity in this exhibition to consider how the artist was perceived within the American art world of his time.

In the first of three essays, Peters explores Twachtman’s identity as a “painter’s painter,” a label he acquired during his life, and analyzes Twachtman’s role during an era when artists established their credibility by adopting a new professionalism, developing strategies to market their art, and creating publicly recognized personas. In her second essay, Peters addresses the criticism leveled at Twachtman’s art of the late 1870s and early 1880s, which reveals the broad support for Realism in America at a moment when a bold and forthright portrayal of modern American life had not yet been curtailed by the nationalist impulses that strengthened later in the century. In the third, she examines the critical commentaries on Twachtman’s works from the mid-1880s through the period just following his death in 1902, exploring how these writings reflected changing views in America of the nature of Impressionism and how this style, imported from France, was perceived in relation to a mode that became identified as American Tonalism in the mid-1890s.

Seeing Twachtman’s Realist and Impressionist art through the eyes of his critics establishes a paradigm for considering the ways that other native artists contemporary with Twachtman were similarly compelled not only by these aesthetic modes but also by how these styles were themselves given form by shifting American visions of them.

The catalogue will also include an essay by John Nelson, who lives in Twachtman’s former home. His essay considers the power and aura of the house on its occupants, both past and present.