Daniel Garber: Romantic Realism
Daniel Garber (1880-1958) was a mainstay of the Pennsylvania Impressionist group of painters, and was one of the most significant and decorated artists of his generation. Jointly organized by the James A. Michener Art Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, this exhibition contains 170 of Garber’s finest paintings and works on paper culled from the collections of both institutions as well as a number of private loans, and is curated by Dr. Lance Humphries, author of the Daniel Garber Catalogue Raisonné. Taking place concurrently at the Michener and PAFA, the exhibit will be split chronologically, with the works at the Academy examining the period of Garber’s early work between 1897 and 1929, and the Michener examining his later work from 1930 through 1955.
Born in Indiana, Garber initially studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy but eventually enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy. When he and his wife returned from a period of study in Europe, they settled permanently near the Bucks County town of Lumberville. In 1909, Garber was invited to join the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy, where he remained an instructor until 1950, exerting a strong influence on several generations of Academy students by upholding traditional aesthetic values of the late nineteenth century. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, he became noted for a series of paintings of local quarries that transformed landscapes disfigured by industry into serene and glowing scenes. He also painted dreamlike spring landscapes depicting blossoming trees in dazzling tonalities, as well as a number of quiet domestic figure paintings of family members.
Softback. 48 pp.