1922

Peonies

American, 1880 - 1958

Peonies is one of only three recorded still lifes by landscape and genre painter Daniel Garber, the "dean" of Pennsylvania Impressionism. The artist spent the summers of 1921 through 1923 in residence at the Tiffany Foundation in Oyster Bay, New York, where he painted Peonies. While there, Garber found particular inspiration in Japanese aesthetics, evident here in the flattened forms, the fabric patterning, and the choice of the peony itself, a popular motif in Japanese art. Garber's painstakingly sensitive approach to light and shadow is evident in the bulbous form of the unopened flower at the left as well as the gentle curves of the twisting leaves.