River House 1938

This is Daniel Garber’s etching, River House. It's all in shades of grey, a symphony of lines really. I imagine him outside, squinting in the sunlight, making hundreds of tiny marks on that plate, trying to capture what he sees. There’s that big tree in the front, sort of a guardian, and then these little houses nestled into the landscape. I wonder what it was like for Garber to stand there, etching needle in hand, feeling the breeze and the sun, and translating that into a network of lines. He's part of a long line of artists doing just that, responding to nature, trying to figure it out, and capture it on a surface. The way he’s built up those tones, it's like he’s not just showing us a place, but also the feeling of being there. It’s intimate and dreamy, like a memory. Painting and printmaking are like that – you're never really alone, you are in conversation with everyone who’s ever tried to pin down the world on canvas or paper.