Daniel Garber (American, 1880-1958) - The Stream

Signed and dated ‘DANIEL GARBER 1902.’ bottom center left; also titled and with original preparer's label verso, oil on board
8 x 9 ½ in. (20.3 x 24.1cm)

Provenance

Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, New York.
Private Collection, New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Exhibition

“Daniel Garber: Romantic Realist,” Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 26-April 8, 2007.

Literature

Artist's Record Book I, p. 1, line 12.
Artist's Record Book II, p. 4, no. 24.
Lance Humphries, Daniel Garber: Catalogue Raisonné, Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, 2006, Vol. II, p. 28, P 64 (illustrated).

Lot Essay

Of the nearly 170 oils Garber painted between 1900 and 1905, only approximately 30 have been identified today as the artist famously destroyed his early work, thus making the present oil a particularly rare and compelling example of the artist's bourgeoning technique.

The Stream dates from the first years Garber spent in Pennsylvania, when he was enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and associated with the Darby Summer Art School, an outdoor academy fun by Thomas Anshutz and Hugh Breckenridge in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. At the time, Garber sketched from nature in small-format oils, which he then intended to develop into full-size versions in his studio, thus following the pure Academic method. While works from the same period show a uniform, monochromatic palette and a penchant for Tonalism, the present work denotes a bold, dramatic accent which is visible in the thick, swirling impasto as well as the dramatic light effects, and the haunting silhouette of the tree at right. Executed in a palette of muddy greens and golden yellows, the landscape stands out as an apparition, channeling the tormented views artists such as Weir or Anshutz completed around the same time and which, for a time, may have inspired Garber before he sailed for Europe in 1905 and changed his style altogether.