Daniel Garber

DANIEL GARBER (AMERICAN 1880-1958) "THE MORNING TRAIN"

Provenance: The Artist.

The Estate of the Artist, 1958.

Collection of the Artist's granddaughter, July 1964.

Richard Stuart Gallery, Pipersville, Pennsylvania, 1984.

Collection of Mrs. John Ross, Pennsylvania, September 1984.

The Estate of Mrs. John Ross.

Private Collection, 1993.

Sotheby's, New York, sale of May 25, 1994, lot 92.

Acquired directly from the above sale.

Newman & Saunders Galleries, Wayne, Pennsylvania.

Acquired directly from the above in November 1994.

Collection of Dorrance H. Hamilton.

EXHIBITED:

"Joint Exhibition of Paintings by Daniel Garber, and Stanley Woodward," Macbeth Gallery, New York, New York, December 13-31, 1927, no. 7 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue).

"Sixteenth Annual Exhibition: Thirty Paintings by Thirty Artists," Macbeth Gallery, New York, New York, February 28-March 19, 1928, no. 12 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue).

"Annual Exhibit of Paintings, Heinz Art Salon, Season 1931: Delaware Valley Landscapes by Daniel Garber, N.A.," Exhibition organized by the Macbeth Gallery, Heinz Pier Exhibition, Atlantic City, New Jersey, May 1931, no. 23 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue).

"Daniel Garber, Retrospective Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings, Etchings," Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 3-29, 1945, no. 123 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue).

LITERATURE:

The Artist's Record Book, I, p. 29, lines 13-18.

Advertisement for Richard Stuart Gallery, The Magazine Antiques, September 1984, ed. 126, no. 3, p. 453 (illustrated).

Lance Humphries, Daniel Garber: Catalogue Raisonné, Volume II, Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, New York, 2006, p. 176, cat. P 480 (illustrated).

NOTE:

Widely considered one of the most influential of the Pennsylvania Impressionists, Daniel Garber was born in Indiana and studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati before enrolling at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1899. He married fellow PAFA student Mary Franklin and, after Garber was awarded the prestigious Cresson Scholarship, the two were able to travel to Europe after leaving the school in 1905 to complete their art education.

Upon their return in 1907, Garber settled in Cuttalossa, a hamlet on the Delaware River an hour north of Philadelphia. It was this verdant and varied landscape that would remain his inspiration and subject matter for the rest of his career. He used a broad spectrum of color for his landscapes and quiet interiors, and the appealing depictions of Bucks County earned him national attention, a teaching position at PAFA, and a seat at the head of New Hope's colony of Pennsylvania Impressionists. He painted en plein air, a naturalist approach already championed by French landscape painters Eugène Boudin (1824-1898) and Claude Monet (1840-1926). Garber's paintings are lush and light-suffused, with dense greenery and an obvious appreciation for his adopted home.

"The Morning Train" was executed in 1924. It is one of the many views Garber painted of the curving sweep of the Delaware River from the hill at Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania. Perched above the scene, the artist has captured two distinct worlds, cleaved by an icy river. In the foreground, the hillside is dotted with small homes with pitched roofs, a woman tending to chickens, sheep grazing. The titular train is implied by a tall plume of smoke rising in the distance against a dark mountain. The anachronism of industry cutting through the pastoral landscape - replete with farm workers and livestock - provides at once a contrast of subjects and a commentary on the changing era in which Garber worked, modernity ever at odds with nature.