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Daniel Garber
1880–1958
BirthplaceNorth Manchester, Indiana, United States of America
Death placeLumberville, Pennsylvania, United States of America
BiographyA leader of the important artists' community that flourished in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in the early decades of the twentieth century, Daniel Garber was a revered teacher and a painter of landscapes, portraits, and domestic scenes. Garber was born and reared in North Manchester, Indiana, the son of a farmer of the Mennonite sect. He entered the Cincinnati Art Academy as a teenager and later studied at the Darby School of Painting, in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, where he was instructed in outdoor landscape painting. Between 1899 and 1905, Garber studied at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, worked as an illustrator and portrait painter, and began his teaching career at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. Awarded a traveling scholarship by the Academy, he spent two years painting in England, Italy, and France accompanied by his wife, Mary Franklin, a former art student.
The Garbers returned to Philadelphia in 1907. Encouraged by painter William Langson Lathrop (1859—1938), they purchased a farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, while retaining a winter residence in the city. Two years later, Garber began his forty-year career as an influential teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He devoted much of his time, however, to painting landscapes in Bucks County. In addition to scenes of farmland and the scenery along the Delaware River, he painted images of local quarries that highlight the unintentional beauty of the industrialized rural landscape.
Garber's landscape paintings feature warm, brilliant color laid down in long, narrow strokes that have been compared to threads in a tapestry; tipped-up perspective and high horizons; cascading foliage or vines that create a screening effect over distant vistas; and a combination of realism and fantasy. They manifest the development of a uniquely American strain of impressionism in which subjective emotion and decorative effects are superimposed on the mode's typical techniques of distinct brushstrokes and bright, outdoor color.
Like many fellow American impressionist painters, Garber also painted interior scenes. Between 1908 and 1924, he portrayed members of his own family, often back-lit by windows and doorways in quiet domestic interiors. In 1917, he began to experiment with etching, a fine art print medium. Recognition had come by 1910, when the then-thirty-year-old artist received several awards and was elected an associate member of the prestigious National Academy of Design; full membership followed in 1913. Garber's works continued to draw honors and prizes during the remainder of his long career. Received enthusiastically by the public, they were also featured in New York's Macbeth Gallery, an important venue for progressive art. Celebrated as the "dean" of Pennsylvania landscape painting, Garber painted until three years before his death at age seventy-eight.
The Garbers returned to Philadelphia in 1907. Encouraged by painter William Langson Lathrop (1859—1938), they purchased a farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, while retaining a winter residence in the city. Two years later, Garber began his forty-year career as an influential teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He devoted much of his time, however, to painting landscapes in Bucks County. In addition to scenes of farmland and the scenery along the Delaware River, he painted images of local quarries that highlight the unintentional beauty of the industrialized rural landscape.
Garber's landscape paintings feature warm, brilliant color laid down in long, narrow strokes that have been compared to threads in a tapestry; tipped-up perspective and high horizons; cascading foliage or vines that create a screening effect over distant vistas; and a combination of realism and fantasy. They manifest the development of a uniquely American strain of impressionism in which subjective emotion and decorative effects are superimposed on the mode's typical techniques of distinct brushstrokes and bright, outdoor color.
Like many fellow American impressionist painters, Garber also painted interior scenes. Between 1908 and 1924, he portrayed members of his own family, often back-lit by windows and doorways in quiet domestic interiors. In 1917, he began to experiment with etching, a fine art print medium. Recognition had come by 1910, when the then-thirty-year-old artist received several awards and was elected an associate member of the prestigious National Academy of Design; full membership followed in 1913. Garber's works continued to draw honors and prizes during the remainder of his long career. Received enthusiastically by the public, they were also featured in New York's Macbeth Gallery, an important venue for progressive art. Celebrated as the "dean" of Pennsylvania landscape painting, Garber painted until three years before his death at age seventy-eight.