Help Identifying Watercolor Artist

Greetings All,

I came across a watercolor that looked nice to me (and the price was right). Finding no identifying name initially, I took it out of it's frame and hidden behind the matting was the name GARDNER. I tried a search but haven't had much luck matching up the artist. Here are a few photos. A little bit of added info, on the back it says it was donated in 2008 on behalf of the Meriam Gamble family. It also is painted on "veritable papier d'arches" paper. That's all I know for now...Here's some photos:

 

It looks to me like a 'California Style' watercolor. I actually really enjoy this style and spent a bit of time researching it some years ago. Just a few of the artists in this movement: Millard Sheets, Milford Zornes, Rex Brandt,
Hardie Gramatky, Dong Kingman, and many others. Google some of these artists and you will see some really interesting work.

The movement lasted from the 1920s to the 1950s. Still representational, but used broad free strokes, bold color (not so much in this piece), and were typically a large format (22 x 30 was a full sheet of Arches watercolor paper) and depicted scenes and everyday life on the pacific coast and beyond.

 

Thank you very much for that information. Since you have knowledge of the style, would you mind looking at an artists work and tell me if it looks similar (or anyone else on the forum). The artist is Fred Gardner. Here’s a link to his bio which matches the time period:

http://www.artnet.com/artists/fred-gardner/biography

 

I don't see any similarity but it will be fascinating to hear what Sabre 123 thinks. The knowledge on this forum is fabulous.

 

Thanks CheersDears, how about these watercolors he did previously?

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/ite...1952-bermudians-study-watercolor#&gid=1&pid=1

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/ite...0-1952-interior-scene-with-women#&gid=1&pid=1

I was looking at the colors used, and at the end of his signature he draws a little dash.

Fred Gardner per his bio was in the New York area, so this could certainly potentially be east coast or somewhere in the west coast. Here is a painting of a viaduct near NY around the same time frame (i'm not saying this is the exact painting, just that it is possible):

http://www.family-images.com/ny/NY Binghamton 1920 Concrete Viaduct on DL&W RR.jpg

 

Yours is such a sketch, but, yes, outdoors, working quickly ... I do see that they might be the same artist. I'll hope Sabre returns. It's very late in Australia. Hope your day brings you lots of great news about this painting. Good night

 

Definitely does not look to be Fred Garner's work.

Just a side note: watercolor is a tough medium to work with. The transparent nature doesn't allow you to 'hide' any of your mistakes. Novice painters will invariably try and control it to the point of overworking the surface and creating 'muddy' looking pieces.

In contrast, you see none of that in your piece. Confident brushstrokes, nice color palette, a mix of wet-in-wet and drybrush techniques, and an intelligent use of the white of the paper in the design (no white paint in transparent watercolor, so preserving the white of the paper is an important aspect of the medium). Overall, it is a clean work and indicative of someone who was skilled.

 

"Confident" is a good choice of words. Can we see photograph of information on back? Could provide valuable leads for identifying, dating.

Debora

 

Thank you very much for your thoughts, I really appreciate the art of seeing quality in art. My eyes were drawn to the piece but I couldn’t describe why. It was appealing to me but I lacked a way to describe that appeal. I’ll post a photo of the back info and see if it adds to the story at all.

 

Here’s the note on the back of the frame.

 

I think the name might be spelled, Marian.

 

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/w...ry.aspx?n=marian-johnson-gamble&pid=143101341

 

Ah, so at least i have locations where she lived now where she might have acquired the artwork.

 

Here you go. This looks right. Or not. What do others think?

https://www.artpal.com/artbill100

Debora

 

I googled "Ginger Cove" and see that the most likely one (given that she died in MD) is a retirement community in Annapolis.

 

Per an existing tree on ancestry.com (with under 3K people), Marian had relatives with the surname "gardner". No one obvious jumps out, but I mention it as a data point.

 

So the signature on Nate's painting looks like GARDNER 6-10 CHIP (or possibly CHIB.) Whereas the signatures on the ones in the artpal entry seem to all be Wm. C. Gardner BWS. If this one really is by the same person, I would guess that Nate's is much earlier than those. Artpal says William C has been an artist for 40 years. Can anyone tell when the artpal posted info was entered?

 

@Debora I'm not seeing it, but I may be unduly influenced by thinking this piece is older than the 40 years he's been painting.