Daniel Garber 1880-1958

Arthur E. Spellissy, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, probably after 1947 (gift from the artist)
Margaret H. Spellissy (his wife), Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Acquired by the present owner's family from the above, 1975

New Hope, Pennsylvania, New Hope Art Associates, Artist of the Month: Daniel Garber, N.A., May 1940, no. 6, p. 13, illustrated (as Towpath 1)
Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, Woodmere Art Gallery, Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by Daniel Garber, N.A., November 1942

The artist's record book I, p. 75, lines 10-12 

Born in Indiana in 1880, Daniel Garber began to study at The Pennsylvania Academy in 1899, where he ultimately became a vital part of the school and established his unique style of Impressionist painting.  One of the most accomplished of the Bucks County painters, Garber settled in the region in 1907, where the rolling hills, Delaware River and surrounding landscape provided a sense of tranquility and endless subject matter for the artist.

 

According to the artist’s record book, Reflections depicts the pond near Holland, New Jersey, looking towards Pennsylvania.  Lance Humphries notes, “although the artist recorded in RB 1 that this work was painted in July 1940, it was completed as early as May of that year, since it was exhibited at New Hope Art Associates.”  With its tapestry-like surface and rich color, Reflections is a classic example of Garber’s impressionist technique. 

 

Brian H. Peterson observes, “The detailed surfaces of his canvases are an indication that Garber took his time painting.  Speed and spontaneity were not qualities that he valued.  Thus the slow, careful building up of surface and color is evidence for the more studied, meditative working process typical of studio painters. . . . Yet he was primarily a plein air painter. . . In a 1923 newspaper article, Garber was quoted as saying, “I want to paint things as I see them. . . I have too much respect for the trees that I paint, and their true forms, to make something out of them that I do not feel exists in them. . . . To look at a Garber painting is to enter a tranquil and orderly universe in which emotion and intellect, the concrete and the ideal, are all honored more or less equally” (Pennsylvania Impressionism, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2002, p. 51-2).

This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work being prepared by Hollis Taggart and Carl Jorgensen in cooperation with the Garber family.

 

This painting retains its original signed Harer frame.