Driftage

William Hubert Givler (1908-2000); Givler, William Hubert (1908-2000)

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Driftage

Description

William Givler, a painter and printmaker, was an instructor at the Museum Art School in Portland beginning in 1931, and dean of the school from 1944 until 1973. Driftage, one of his most important paintings, was exhibited in the Oregon Annual for 1949 at the Portland Art Museum; the Oregon Centennial Exhibition of 1959 at the Portland Art Museum; and the exhibition Art of the Pacific Northwest, presented in 1974 at the Smithsonian Institution, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Portland Art Museum. The first owner of Driftage was Stewart H. Holbrook, the Oregon author, who wrote in the Sunday Oregonian Magazine (January 8, 1950): ""I never saw, in life, a beach like that portrayed in 'Driftage,' nor a sky, nor a woman. Yet the total effect was little short of a blow-a scene of a brooding, sinister sky, of winds wild beyond knowing, of chaotic flotsam come to shore, of the figure of a girl who might well have been a witch of the storm, or some siren of the reefs-a scene both foreboding and beautiful, filled with the savage movement of unseen forces, with disturbing forms and colors.""