Thomas H. Garver, curator and O. Winston Link advocate, dies at 89

MADISON, Wis. — Great artists often depend on advocates to protect their reputations, and that was never truer than in the relationship between noted American photographer O. Winston Link and his one-time assistant and longtime friend Thomas H. Garver. A significant art figure in his own right, Garver did as much as anyone to secure Link’s reputation as a great interpreter of the culture of the steam locomotive.

Garver, an accomplished museum curator, art impresario, and author, died June 9 in Madison. He was 89.

Born in Duluth, Minn., on Jan. 23, 1934, Garver received his B.A. from Haverford College and an M.A. in art history from the University of Minnesota. Among several museum associations over nearly 30 years, Garver served as founding director of what is now California’s Orange County Museum of Art and later was director 1980-1987 of what is now the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. He subsequently organized art exhibitions for several museums and companies, including building the art collection of the former Rayovac Corporation.

But it was likely his work with and on behalf of Link that Garver will be best remembered. The relationship began in the late 1950s, when Garver worked for Link in New York and made three trips to assist the photographer in making recordings of steam on Norfolk & Western, notably on N&W’s fabled Abingdon Branch, as well as on Y6 2-8-8-2 pushers on Blue Ridge grade.

More than 40 years later, Garver reflected on the experience in the Summer 2001 issue of Classic Trains. “Waiting, looking, listening: every sense was heightened, knowing that what we were recording was a precious document, for soon all these sounds and sights would all be gone,” Garver wrote. “Working for Winston Link wasn’t easy, but it was a magical and transformative experience which I will treasure forever.”

Years later, at a point when Link keenly needed a friend and supporter, Garver served as the business agent for Link, who died Jan. 30, 2001, at age 86. Following Link’s death, Garver became the organizing curator of the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, Va., which opened in 2004 in Roanoke’s former N&W passenger station.

Garver was also a noted author, first of a 1985 monograph about the American figurative artist George Tooker, and later of a definitive work on Link, The Last Steam Railroad in North America, published in 1995 by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. In the Link book, Garver revealed himself to be not only an expert on the nature of photography, but also a skilled writer.

“These photographs are, in every way, works of art,” wrote Garver. “Winston Link innately possessed what has been called photographic vision, the ability to visualize photographs before they are created and to recognize in the process that what one sees, no matter how interesting, does not necessarily translate into an interesting photograph. The thing photographed and a photograph of it are coequal neither in interest, nor in appearance.”

Adding perspective to Garver’s contributions in art and photography is Scott Lothes, president and executive director of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, based in Madison.

“Tom Garver’s contributions to the railroad community’s understanding of one of its most remarkable practitioners are impossible to overstate,” says Lothes. “With deep firsthand knowledge built up over a relationship that spanned nearly half a century, Tom helped us gain a better understanding of both Link and his photography.”

Lothes notes that Garver assisted the Center in mounting a decade-long Link exhibition with prints from Garver’s personal collection. Garver also donated several prints to the Center, all of which are now in the organization’s permanent collection.

Beyond his work in the art world, Garver volunteered at Madison’s Second Harvest food bank and Agrace Hospice, was active in the First Unitarian Society of Madison, served on the city of Madison’s Alcohol License Review Committee, and was a board member for Wright in Wisconsin, an organization promoting the legacy of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Garver is survived by his brother, John T. Garver of Central Point, Ore. At Garver’s request, no funeral or memorial service is planned, although he left instructions for a friend to, in the words of Garver’s official obituary, “travel to San Francisco with a thimbleful of his ashes, which will be sent into the air from the center span of the Golden Gate Bridge, a structure Tom regarded as being one the few creations of humankind which truly complement and enhance its natural environment.”