The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 17, 2026

A horizontally oriented watercolor and gouache painting with intricate brushwork depicts a thicket. In the foreground, tangled tan grasses and spindly shrubs fill the lower half. To the right, a thick, mossy tree trunk rises vertically. On the left, dark, twisted branches reach across the upper half against a blue sky with soft white clouds. Layers of green and brown foliage fill the background behind the interwoven branches and tall grass.

Trees and Undergrowth

1885

Garden William Fraser

(British, 1856–1921)
England, 19th century
watercolor with gouache
Sheet: 19 x 26.8 cm (7 1/2 x 10 9/16 in.)
The A. W. Ellenberger, Sr., Endowment Fund 1978.52
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Although William Fraser Garden received critical recognition for his watercolors early in his career, he lived and worked in relative obscurity and was plagued by financial troubles for most of his life.

Description

William Fraser Garden’s work was based on the rendering of minute detail with painstaking brushwork and handling of color. Here, he describes an insignificant corner of the Bedford landscape: a tangled thicket in which dry grasses and saplings commingle. Bare branches stretch across a bright blue sky, creating a pattern as intricate as a spider’s web. This may have been the drawing that Garden exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885 with the title Early Spring in the Woods. A pale green haze in the grass, the azure sky, and scattered wildflowers suggest the promise of spring.
  • ?-before 1978
    (Christopher Wood, London)
    1978
    (Shepherd Gallery, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
    1978-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • English Nineteenth Century Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings. Exh. Cat. New York: Shepherd Gallery, 1978. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 84
    Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1978." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 1 (1979): 3-47. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 22
    Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Mentioned: pp. 130-1, 146, no. 44; Reproduced: p. 131
  • British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
    Nature Sublime: Landscapes from the 19th Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 15-November 14, 2004).
    Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).
    Year in Review: 1978. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 13-March 18, 1979).
  • {{cite web|title=Trees and Undergrowth|url=false|author=Garden William Fraser|year=1885|access-date=17 April 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1978.52