Daniel Garber (American, 1880-1958) The Blue House Oil on canvas 25-1/4 x 30-1/4 inches (64.1 x 76.8 cm) Signed lower left: Daniel Garber Signed and titled on stretcher: The Blue House / Daniel / Garber Property from a Distinguished Collection, Houston, Texas PROVENANCE: The artist; Mary Franklin Garber, the artist's wife, by descent; Estate of the above, 1968; Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Donald and Margaret B. Scholl, Pennsylvania, acquired from the above; Estate of the above; Freeman's, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 2, 2024, lot 58; Acquired by the present owner from the above. EXHIBITED: Woodmere Art Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by Daniel Garber, N.A.," November 1-22, 1942; Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "Daniel Garber: Paintings, Drawings, and Etchings, and Charles Grafly Sculpture," January 29-February 28, 1965. LITERATURE: Artist's Record Book I, p. 59; L. Humphries, Daniel Garber: Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, New York, 2006, p. 252, no. P 707, illustrated. Daniel Garber's distinctive vision of the Pennsylvania landscape emerged from a rigorous commitment to his medium and resulted in an artistic language entirely his own. During his formative education at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Garber's principal instructor was Thomas Anshutz. While Anshutz taught the tenants of the American realist tradition, he still encouraged his students to pursue an independent artistic direction, moving beyond their instructor's signature dark palette and conventional compositions that defined the Ashcan School. Garber therefore turned his attention to the rural American landscape, focusing on meditations of the scenery surrounding his home and studio in Bucks County, in a uniquely luminous and highly decorative style. The artist is today acknowledged as one of the leaders of the New Hope School, a semblance of artists who embraced a collective regionalist identity and wholly subscribed to the practice of plein-air painting. The artist spent his career capturing the environs of Cuttalossa, Pennsylvania, and the present work is likely a scene rendered there along the winding shores of the Delaware River. The composition centers a large blue house expressed in a vibrant robin's egg blue. That same hue is repeated in the cheerful sky, which is framed by a celebration of large trees in various autumnal shades—the fierce green which expands across the right side, offers shade to the home's protruding porch, a cascade of yellow grounds the home's left side and on the far side of the riverbank, a muted violet defines a distant tree line of dense woods—the palette of the work is a triumph of nature's most exquisite colors. In The Blue House, Garber features multiple figures. Their humble presence shows them emerging from the homestead—tending the garden, enjoying a respite on both porches—it's an idle weekend day for its occupants and nearby neighbors who gather in the late afternoon sun. An observer once noted of Garber's paintings, "his work contains nothing morbid, nothing cynical, scarcely anything even in minor key." While another noted that Garber showed, "a courageous preference for the representation of cheerful aspects of nature" (K.A. Foster, Daniel Garber, 1850-1958, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1980, p. 37). In The Blue House, Garber's independent vision of the American landscape finds a particularly harmonious expression. Kathleen A. Foster once described the artist's work as "luminous and tranquil, these landscapes show the Impressionist tradition disciplined by an almost classical orderliness and softened by a lyrical idealism. Effects of harmonic balance and simplicity rule his work, just as they guided his life" (ibid, p. 16). It was this individual approach that established Garber as a defining figure of the New Hope School and ensured his enduring legacy within American landscape painting. HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

Woodmere Art Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by Daniel Garber, N.A.," November 1-22, 1942; Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "Daniel Garber: Paintings, Drawings, and Etchings, and Charles Grafly Sculpture," January 29-February 28, 1965.

The artist; Mary Franklin Garber, the artist's wife, by descent; Estate of the above, 1968; Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Donald and Margaret B. Scholl, Pennsylvania, acquired from the above; Estate of the above; Freeman’s, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 2, 2024, lot 58; Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Unlined and the canvas is slightly slack on its stretcher. Isolated spots of surface cracking and stretcher bar marks along outer edges. Under UV examination: some of the artist’s original pigment read strongly. Small spots of inpaint in the light blue pigments of the sky at upper left. Small dashes of inpaint at far right in the purple distant foliage. Small spots of inpainting to address frame abrasion along the extreme outer edges. The work retains a period Whistler frame.
Framed Dimensions 34.5 X 39.5 Inches