Beach at Squam

Provenance

The artist

Martha Twachtman, wife of the artist, Greenwich, Connecticut, by descent from above

John E. Cowdin and Gertrude Cowdin, New York

Estate of above

Sale, American Art Association, New York, New York, May 19, 1916, lot 73, from above

Macbeth Gallery, New York, New York, acquired from above

Burton Mansfield, New Haven, Connecticut, acquired from above, 1916

Sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, April 7, 1933, lot 73, from above

Macbeth Gallery, New York, New York, acquired from above

Edward Reiss, acquired from above, 1933

Charles F. Williams, Cincinnati, Ohio, by 1937

Mr. and Mrs. James R. Williams, Cincinnati, Ohio, acquired from above, by 1957

Mr. and Mrs. David Workman, by 1965

Kraushaar Galleries, New York, New York, by 1966

Mr. and Mrs. Chris Huntington, Waterville, Maine, by 1968

Sale, Christie’s, New York, New York, December 3, 1982, lot 154

Borghi & Co., New York, New York, acquired from above

Private collection, New York

Ira and Nancy Koger, Jacksonville, Florida, acquired from above, 1983

Private collection, Jacksonville, Florida

Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, New York, November 29, 1995, lot 33, from above

Spanierman Gallery, New York, New York, acquired from above

Private collection, acquired from above

Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, New York, May 16, 2024, lot 132, from above

Exhibited

The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, Exhibition of the Works of John H. Twachtman, January 9–January 27, 1901

Durand-Ruel Gallery, New York, New York, Paintings and Pastels by John H. Twachtman, March 4–16, 1901

New York School of Applied Design for Women, New York, Fifty Paintings by the Late John H. Twachtman, January 15–February 15, 1913 (as Sand Dunes, Annisquam)

Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, New York, 1920

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, Exhibition of Paintings, Pottery, and Glass Loaned by the Honorable Burton Mansfield of New Haven, April 13–November 1, 1920

Brooklyn Museum, New York, Exhibition of Paintings by American Impressionists and Other Artists of the Period 1880–1900, January 18–February 28, 1932

Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Finn Williams, January 17–March 14, 1937

Brooklyn Museum, New York, The Coast and the Sea: A Survey of American Marine Painting, November 19, 1948–January 16, 1949

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Seashore: Paintings of the 19th and 20th Centuries, October 22­–December 5, 1965

Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, A Retrospective Exhibition: John Henry Twachtman, October 7–November 20, 1966

Spanierman Gallery, New York, New York, John Henry Twachtman: An Exhibition of Paintings & Pastels, February 3–24, 1968

Portland Museum of Art, Maine, The Ellen and Chris Huntington Collection, April–May 1976

The Cornell Fine Arts Center, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, The Genteel Tradition: Impressionist and Realist Art from the Ira and Nancy Koger Collection in Celebration of the Centennial of Rollins College, November 1, 1985–January 26, 1986

Spanierman Gallery, New York, New York, Twachtman in Gloucester: His Last Years, 1900–1902, May 12–June 13, 1987

Selections from the Ira and Nancy Koger Collection of American Paintings, The Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville, Tennessee, June 10–July 30, 1989; Cummer Gallery of Art, Jacksonville, Florida, August 10–September 24, 1989

At the Water’s Edge: 19th and 20th Century American Beach Scenes, Tampa Museum of Art, Florida, December 9, 1989–March 4, 1990; Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, Florida, May 4–June 17, 1990; Virigina Beach Center for the Arts, Virginia, July 8–September 2, 1990; The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, November 8, 1990–January 6, 1991

Spanierman Gallery, New York, New York, The Intimate Landscapes of John H. Twachtman (1853–1902), May 5–July 2, 1993

Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, New York, American Paintings VII, 1994

Spanierman Gallery, New York, New York, Painters of Cape Ann, 1840–1940: One Hundred Years in Gloucester and Rockport, April 13–June 22, 1996

Greenwich Historical Society, Connecticut, The New Spirit and the Cos Cob Art Colony: Before and After the Armory Show, October 9, 2013–January 12, 2014

Literature

“A Trio of Painters: Pictures by Three Americans in Three Fifth Avenue Galleries,” The New York Times, March 7, 1901, 8.

Exhibition of the Works of John H. Twachtman (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1901), n.p., no. 3.

Exhibition of Fifty Paintings by the Late John H. Twachtman by Permission of the Trustees Thomas W. Dewing, Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, and Loans from Private Collections (New York: New York School of Applied Design for Women, 1913), n.p., no. 31. (as Sand Dunes, Annisquam)

“Twachtman Art Gets Highest Bids,” The New York Times, May 10, 1916.

Eliot Clark, John Twachtman (New York: Privately Printed, 1924), n.p.

Beaux-Arts, 6 (May 1933), 6.

Exhibition of Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Finn Williams (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 1937), 17, no. 23.

Mary L. Alexander, “The Week in Art Circles,” Cincinnati Enquirer, January 17, 1937.

The Coast and the Sea: A Survey of American Marine Painting (New York: The Brooklyn Museum Press, 1948), 34, no. 118.

John Douglas Hale, “The Life and Creative Development of John H. Twachtman” (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1957), vol. II., 541, no. 48.

The Seashore: Paintings of the 19th and 20th Centuries (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Art, 1965), n.p., no. 51.

A Retrospective Exhibition: John Henry Twachtman (Cincinnati: The Cincinnati Art Museum, 1966), 19, no. 85.

John Henry Twachtman: An Exhibition of Paintings & Pastels (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 1968), n.p., no. 21.

Sarah B. Sherrill, “Current and coming,” The Magazine Antiques, June 1983, 1138.

Donald D. Keyes, The Genteel Tradition: Impressionist and Realist Art from the Ira and Nancy Koger Collection in Celebration of the Centennial of Rollins College (Winter Park, FL: Rollins College, 1985), 72–73.

Twachtman in Gloucester: His Last Years, 1900–1902 (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 1987), 76–77, pl. 14.

At the Water’s Edge: 19th and 20th Century American Beach Scenes (Tampa: The Tampa Museum of Art, 1989), 31–32, 44 and 74.

Selections from the Ira and Nancy Koger Collection of American Paintings (Nashville: The Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, 1989), 35.

American Paintings VII (New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 1994), 190–191.

Lisa N. Peters, “John Twachtman (1853–1902) and the American Scene in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Frontier within the Terrain of the Familiar” (PhD diss., City University of New York, 1995), vol. I, 477; vol. II, 997, fig. 497.

Painters of Cape Ann, 1840–1940: One Hundred Years in Gloucester and Rockport (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 1996), 7–8, fig. 15.

Lisa N. Peters, John Twachtman (1853–1902): A “Painter’s Painter” (New York: Spanierman Gallery, LLC, 2006), 166.

Valerie Ann Leeds, The New Spirit and the Cos Cob Art Colony: Before and After the Armory Show (Cos Cob, CT: Greenwich Historical Society, 2013), 6, 9, 37, pl. 2.

Lisa N. Peters, John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné (Greenwich, CT: Greenwich Historical Society, 2021) (jhtwachtman.org), no. OP.1417.

Related Works

The Waterfall, ca. 1893–1900, oil on board, 16⅝ x 21⅜ inches; Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts

The Dunes, ca. 1900, oil on canvas, 20¼ x 30⅛ inches; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York

The Torrent, ca. 1900, oil on canvas, 25¼ x 30⅛ inches; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

Note

Employing cool pastel colors, John Henry Twachtman depicts a quiet beach along the waterfront village of Annisquam, known by locals as Squam, on Cape Ann near Gloucester, Massachusetts. By 1900, the area had become popular among artists due to its picturesque scenes.

Art historian Donald D. Keyes notes that Beach at Squam “expresses the spiritual, subjective qualities for which Twachtman’s paintings had been well known”[1] while Valerie Ann Leeds describes, “the shore is bathed in a vaporous haze of atmosphere and opalescent color with Twachtman’s signature refined draftsmanship giving only a suggestion of the landscape.”[2] Twachtman included the work in his solo exhibitions of 1901 in Chicago and New York.

[1] Donald D. Keyes, The Genteel Tradition: Impressionist and Realist Art from the Ira and Nancy Koger Collection in Celebration of the Centennial of Rollins College (Winter Park, FL: Rollins College, 1985), 72.

[2] Valerie Ann Leeds, The New Spirit and the Cos Cob Art Colony: Before and After the Armory Show (Cos Cob, CT: Greenwich Historical Society, 2013), 9.