Eric Gibberd (1897-1972) British/American, Landscape Mixed Media on Paper. Title: "Banks of Mojave River." Uses vibrant colors and shapes to display a mountainous riverside view. Signed bottom left. The date 07/18/77 is written in pen on the back. Framed under plexiglass. 

Overall Size: 25 1/4 x 19 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 18 x 12 1/4 in. 

Eric Gibberd was born in London, England in 1897. Suffering from poor eyesight from a young age, by age ten it was beginning to fail altogether. After consulting numerous specialists throughout Europe his family moved to Western Canada in the hopes that his vision would benefit from the open landscape. For years, he was restricted from reading and other tasks that might strain his eyes, and all his schooling was conducted orally. After the death of his father, Gibberd went to work at the age of seventeen to support the family. He pursued a successful career in retail advertising for the Hudson Bay Company in Edmonton before moving to the United States in 1926, where he met and married Pauline Bridge Seeberger, a trained artist. She encouraged him to study art, and he trained in Los Angeles, Barcelona, and Salzburg. Gibberd and his wife moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1957, where they joined the Taos Art Association and founded Gallery A with two business partners. He was heavily influenced by Paul Cezanne, whose studio he had been able to use while spending some time in Aix en Provence, and by Emil Bisttram, a European Modernist immigrant who had started the Taos Art School. He passed away in 1972, with permanent exhibitions of his work still on display at universities and museums around the world, including the Museum of New Mexico and St. Paul’s School in London.