Students of Painting

Daniel Garber  "Students of Painting"  1923 The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Daniel Garber (1880-1958) was an American Impressionist painter and a member of the New Hope art colony. He studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Both his landscape and his figurative works are usually characterised by a tightly structured composition and a high-key palette. This painting of art students is similar to several paintings Garber did of his daughter Tanis as a child, standing or sitting in front of a brilliantly lit window.

Daniel Garber  "Tanis"  1915  Philadelphia Museum of Art

In "Students of Painting" the young blonde woman is enveloped in a white painting smock standing in front of the large studio window. One wonders if it is indeed Tanis herself as young woman or just someone who reminded Garber of his daughter. Garber taught for over forty years at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and must have had a long river of students, both male and female, pass through his classes.