Retrospective Honors Life And Work Of Jack Garver

This year would have marked the 100th birthday of internationally renowned watercolorist Jack Garver, the award-winning artist who was also a cherished member, instructor and friend of the Creative Arts Center in Chatham.  

In celebration of his life and work, the Center is hosting an historic exhibition titled "Jack Garver – At Home and On the Road: A Journey in Watercolor" through Thursday May 22.

 Garver was a resident of West Chatham for over 43 years, and the Creative Art Center "meant so much to him," said Amy Middleton, the Center’s executive director. The idea for the retrospective came from his daughters Kristen Garver Bach and Jan Garver-Flanders, who envisioned it as a celebration of his work as well as a tribute to the Creative Art Center.  

"In the later part of his life, the Creative Arts Center was his home," Kristen said.

 The exhibition includes 65 of his works, many never seen before. There are very recognizable Cape subjects, Middleton said, plus iconic scenes from his travels around the world. Reframed with a simple fresh contemporary driftwood frame and a white mat, the work is displayed with a clean, fresh look that complements the work.

 Putting together the retrospective was a work of love for Garver's daughters. Garver travelled extensively, and this retrospective of his work tells the story of his travels, Bach said.  

"Everywhere he went he would sketch or photograph what he saw. His wanderlust is reflected in his paintings," she said. Paintings are included from trips to England, Scotland, Italy, Portugal, France, Greece, Nova Scotia and Egypt, as well as the southwest United States.

 Garver's journeys in and around Chatham and all over the Cape are also represented, with scenes that include a lobster boat hauled out in Wellfleet Harbor, a clammer on the way to work the flats and dune shacks dotting the shore.

 As visitors enter the gallery, they will see a whimsical and detailed listing of Garver's "89 years of experiences," notes originally entered one at a time in his four-by-five-inch journal. Bach and Garver-Flanders found the journal after he died and Garver-Flanders, an accomplished calligrapher like her father, put the musings together in a list for the exhibition.

 Many of these experiences, from "cruising above the Arctic circle" to "coaching football," from "riding to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on a mule" to "cruising the Nile from Aswan to Luxor," are represented in paintings on display throughout the gallery. Visitors can connect items on the list to the paintings on display through a series of asterisks.

 Garver was born in Cumberland, Md. and grew up in Hagerstown, Md.  In August 1944, at the age of 19, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Europe as a private and a member of the 318th Infantry regiment, 80th Division.  Coming ashore on Omaha Beach, he became known as “Bazookaman” in his unit (“got no tanks but killed a big tree” he would later write). He ultimately fought in three campaigns: Normandy, Northern France, and the Ardennes, where he was wounded on December 23, 1944. 

 The experience "shaped my life," Garver would tell his daughters. The rest of his unit was lost in the Battle of the Bulge the following day, Kristen recalled recently. It was the hospital psychiatrist, who recognized the artistic abilities of the young man drawing murals on the Army hospital walls, who Garver believed saved his life by reassigning him to a desk job. "I became an artist because of it," he would recall in later years.

 Honors subsequently bestowed on Garver included the Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman Badge and three Battle Stars, one for each campaign. One of the paintings in the exhibit, titled "Wages of War," pictures his ribbons and badges from those battles. The work is one of the last paintings he did, two years before he died in 2021 at age 96.

 The long-awaited show brings together a stunning and rarely seen selection of Garver's watercolors, drawn from his family's private collection, Middleton said. Some of the pieces are available for purchase, offering collectors and admirers a unique opportunity to own a piece of watercolor history.

 Garver was a member of the American Watercolor Society, the Salmagundi Club New York, New England Watercolor Society, Pennsylvania Watercolor Society, Taos National Society of Watercolorists, the Watercolor USA Honor Society, and The Artists’ Fellowship. His paintings won many awards in national and international competitions and appeared in numerous national art publications, including two feature articles in American Artist Magazine.

 A complete listing of paintings for sale is located on the Creative Arts Center website at www.capecodcreativearts.org. The Creative Arts Center is located at 154 Crowell Rd. in Chatham. Hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The exhibit runs through Thursday, May 22. For more information, contact the Creative Arts Center at 508-945-3583