John Henry Twachtman. John Henry Twachtman was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career.
Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impressionism to be among the more personal and experimental of his generation. He was a member of The Ten, a loosely-allied group of American artists dissatisfied with professional art organizations, who banded together in 1898 to exhibit their works as a stylistically unified group.
Twachtman was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and received his first art training there, including studying under Frank Duveneck. Like some white artists of means and European heritage of the era, Twachtman then proceeded to Europe to further his education.
He enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1875 and visited Venice with Duveneck and William Merritt Chase in 1878. His landscapes from this time exhibit the loosely brushed, shadowy technique taught at Munich.
Twachtman also learned etching, and sometimes carried etching plates with him that he could use to spontaneously record a scene. After a brief return to America, Twachtman studied from 1883 to 1885 at the Academie Julian in Paris, and his paintings dramatically shifted towards a soft, gray and green tonalist style. During this time he painted what some art historians consider to be his greatest masterpieces, including Arques-la-Batail