(American, 1880 - 1958)
A Little Maid (The Red Cross Volunteer)
Conte crayon on wove paper, 11 3/4 x 9 5/8 inches
Signed and dated at bottom center: “”Daniel Garber/1918″
Exhibited: Embracing Elegance, 1885-1920: American Art from the Huber Family Collection Hood Museum of Art (June 11-Sept. 4, 2011) jointly with High Museum of Art, (Sept. 24-Nov. 27, 2011)
Illustrated: Hood Museum of Art, NH/High Museum of Art, GA Embracing Elegance, 1885-1920: American Art from the Huber Family Collection (Barbara J MacAdam (Editor), Stephanie Mayer Heydt, Dr. Susan G Larkin, p. 50, pl. 10)
Recorded: Daniel Garber Catalogue Raisonné, Hollis Taggart Galleries 2006
Provenance: Donated to the American Artists’ War Emergency Fund, New York, ca. 1918; Private collection, Pennsylvania; Alderfer’s Auction Company, June 12th 1997, Lot 355 Plymouth Meeting Gallery, Plymouth Meeting, PA, January 1998; Huber Family Collection, 1999
This drawing—which Garber produced for and donated to the American Artists’ War Emergency Fund—depicts the artist’s daughter knitting items for donation to the war effort c. 1918. It is based upon a larger charcoal drawing now in the collection of the James A. Michener Art Museum (1997.17.8). The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) has a related drypoint by Garber in their collection (1955.7.5).
About the Artist
(American, 1880 - 1958)
Daniel Garber was born in North Manchester, Indiana, and studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati with Vincent Nowottny (1854‑1908) from 1897 to 1898. In 1899 and 1900 he attended the summer art classes at the new Darby School, near Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, founded by Hugh Breckenridge (1870‑1937) and Thomas Anshutz (1851‑1912). He then studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia from 1900 to 1905. In 1905 he won the Academy's Cresson Travelling Scholarship and spent two years in Europe with his wife, fellow Academy student Mary Franklin (n.d.). Upon their return, the couple settled at “Cuttalossa” in Lumberville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Garber began his forty‑year teaching career at the Pennsylvania Academy. He became the teacher of many other important landscape painters, such as Francis Speight (1896‑1989). With his characteristic landscapes of the area, Garber became the central figure of the New Hope School. He traveled around the Pennsylvania countryside, painting the landscape for whole days at a time. A distinctive quality of his work is the tapestry effect he creates by layering the foreground, middle ground, and distance into horizontal bands. The foreground, or “curtain,” usually consists of a screen of trees that opens onto a lighter landscape plane in the middle or far distance. Often a barn or house is placed in the distance, either under the shadows of trees or settled among them.
Garber won many important prizes and awards, including the prestigious Hallgarten Prize from the National Academy of Design in New York in 1909, a gold medal at the Panama‑Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, and the Jennie Sesnan Gold Medal from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1937. He was a member of the National Academy of Design, the Salmagundi Club, and the National Arts Council in New York as well as the Pennsylvania Academy.
