Carl Faber Oil on Canvas — Large Abstract, Mid-Century Modern

A large-scale non-objective abstract oil painting on stretched canvas by Carl Faber, the American desert painter associated with the Gila wilderness region of New Mexico and the East Mojave. This work shares the formal vocabulary of Faber's mature abstract style — a dense, centrifugal composition in which hard-edged geometric forms, sweeping arcs, and freely calligraphic passages coexist in energetic tension across the full vertical field.

The palette here is notably different in character from Faber's more saturated abstracts, built on a warm cream and sand ground against which cadmium red, orange, violet, teal, and soft blue-grey forms are distributed with confident spatial authority. A large open arc sweeps through the center of the composition, functioning as both a structural anchor and a device that organizes the surrounding forms into upper and lower registers. Bold rectangular blocks in the upper quadrant — black, orange, green, and red — are answered below by a richly layered zone of spiraling circles and interlocking organic shapes, with dense calligraphic passages threading through the lower left in a manner directly traceable to Faber's sign-painting and lettering background. The signature "FABER" is painted directly onto the canvas in the lower right corner. The work is presented in a white wood gallery frame without glass. Please review the Condition section for full details.

CONDITION

Good condition with no remarkable damage overall. The painted surface is intact and colors remain vibrant. The white gallery frame presents cleanly with no visible damage.

DIMENSIONS

• Overall: 30" × 24" × 1¾"
• Visible (sight size): 29½" × 23½"

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY — Carl Faber
(Delaware — East Mojave — Gila, New Mexico)

Carl Faber was an American painter who spent the better part of his working life in the desert Southwest, developing a distinctive body of work rooted in sustained, first-hand observation of the natural world. He studied commercial art at a vocational school in Delaware, and worked professionally in sign painting, metalwork, business displays, and silkscreening in Florida and California before redirecting his energies entirely toward easel painting.

In 1972, Faber moved to the East Mojave desert to focus on landscape painting, studying the desert terrain that would become his hallmark subject for more than three decades. His artwork and austere desert lifestyle attracted attention from both local and national press during the 1980s, and organizations such as the Sierra Club and Friends of the Mojave Road brought a steady stream of visitors and buyers to his remote studio. It was in the East Mojave that Faber developed his philosophy of field painting — a rigorous commitment to painting directly from nature rather than from photographic reference, a practice he defended on both technical and philosophical grounds.

Faber's experiences with LSD in the 1960s shaped his perception of the natural world in ways he believed gave him an unusually acute sensitivity to color, light, and structural relationships in nature. This perceptual intensity carried through into his studio work as well — evident in the compressed chromatic energy and restless formal invention of canvases such as the present work. His training as a sign painter gave him a command of calligraphy and the importance of accurate, deft brushstrokes, producing a freshness and clarity achieved through single, confident marks rather than reworked passages.

Faber illustrated his partner Adrienne Knute's botanical study Plants of the East Mojave, published in 1991 and reprinted in 2002, demonstrating both his draftsmanship and his deep engagement with the Mojave ecosystem. He and Adrienne first came to Gila Hot Springs, New Mexico, in 2004 — originally seeking a winter home — but fell in love with the place and made it their permanent residence. It is from this final chapter of his life, based in the Gila wilderness near Silver City, that the present work originates.

Faber was known as a committed teacher who accepted students on a non-commercial basis, preferring to pass on his technical knowledge and philosophical outlook to those he judged capable of genuine dedication. He described his approach as one that "would have nothing to do with money." A notice from the ACE Studio Art Gallery in Silver City confirmed his passing, the date of which has not yet been independently verified in published sources. His work remains held in private collections across the Southwest and beyond.