Daniel Garber: Beginnings

"Tohickon" by Daniel Garber

"'Garber's art has too few faults,' complained a newspaper critic in 1921, and the same might be said about his life. Serious, hard-working, sensitive, exquisitely competent, Garber made paintings the way he created his beautiful world on the Cuttalossa Glen. Hailed as the Dean of Pennsylvania painters, Garber could rest at the end of his life and point proudly to a long list of his works in important American collections, an awesome assemblage of medals, a distinguished roster of students, a handsome crowd of great-grandchildren and a thriving flock of sheep. Said Garber, 'I am a very happy man!'

The prospect of a happy and successful artist, dedicated to the pursuit of beauty and excellence, is delightful. Stocky, not very tall, ruddy-faced and just past seventy, he has all the appearance of a country squire. Without restlessness, eccentricity and anguish, Garber presents, at first view, the image of a model artist who rejects (or perhaps conquers) all the modern conventions of artistic behavior.

Born on a farm near North Manchester, Indiana, on April 11, 1880, Garber was the youngest son of a Mennonite family that traced its roots back to Pennsylvania-German immigrants in the middle of the eighteenth century. His upbringing gave him habits that indirectly influenced his painting and established the entire tone of his career. But 'looking back to that early and very simple way of life, Garber found it hard to explain just what motivated his desire to be an artist,' commented a journalist in 1940. Even the walls of his parents' home were bare of pictures or decorations.' His pictorial impulses remain a topic of much wonderment, even among the family members.

The Mennonites less successfully instilled respect for orthodox religion, however, for Garber stopped going to church at the age of ten. But much later, he would lovingly touch a small blossom from his garden and growl at his daughter, 'You only have to look at a flower to know there's a God!'

To be continued

(Excerpts from Daniel Garber, 1880-1958: Exhibition, June 27 - August 24, 1980, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts" by Kathleen Foster.)