John Henry Twachtman was born in 1853 in Cincinnati, Ohio to German immigrants. Twachtman was associated with Tonalism, American Impressionism, and he was a founding member of “The Ten,” an impressionist group that included the likes of Childe Hassam, Robert Reid, Willard Metcalf, Frank Benson, and Edmund Tarbell. John H. Twachtman was influenced by the French Impressionists, the tonalist James Whistler, and portraitist Frank Duveneck. He is best known for his impressionist landscapes that were said to be far ahead of the times.

The Ohio native first attended the Ohio Mechanics Institute at the age of 15, but transferred to the McMicken School of Design, where he studied alongside Robert Blum and Kenyon Cox. Twachtman went on to study at the Munich Royal Academy in 1875 under realist genre scene painter Ludwig von Loefftz, as well as at the prestigious Académie Julian under figure painter Jules Lefebvre in 1883. During this period, Twachtman’s palette was low-key and his brushstrokes were large, but fluid. After returning to the United States in 1887, Twachtman began illustrating for Scribner’s and teaching at the Art Students League. Over time, his paintings became brighter and more impressionistic, especially after he purchased a house in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1890. In his final years, he summered in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where his style returned to the bold strokes of his earlier years, but preserved the bright colors of his Greenwich work.