Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Harvey Dunn at the NRM

An exhibition of the work of Golden Age illustrator Harvey Dunn has opened at the Norman Rockwell Museum. 



Dunn grew up on a South Dakota farm and studied with Howard Pyle. He became an artist reporter in World War I, and then spent the balance of his career as an influential story illustrator and teacher.

The exhibition includes work from throughout his career, as well as paintings by some of his noteworthy students such as Dean Cornwell, Henry C. Pitz, Mead Schaeffer, Harold von Schmidt, Frank Street, Saul Tepper, John Clymer, Lyman Anderson, and James E. Allen. There will also be public talks by experts on Dunn.


They'll be showing the little film I put together using footage by Frank Reilly. (Link to Video)

Dunn said, “We think of art as sort of a flimsy thing,” he said, “but do you realize that the only thing left from ancient times is the art… The Greek statues that are armless and nameless are just as beautiful today as they were the day the unknown sculptor laid down his hammer and chisel and said, ‘Oh, hell, I can’t do it!'”
The exhibition will be up through March 13.
NRM presents: Harvey Dunn and His Students

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know I'm not taking a bold stance by saying this, but his painting THE PRAIRIE IS MY GARDEN is simply incredible, and the print we have in our home is one of our families' absolute favorites.

Anonymous said...

And looks like they're publishing a catalog for those of us geographically unable to visit: http://store.nrm.org/browse.cfm/masters-of-the-golden-age:-harvey-dunn-and-his-students:-exhibition-catalog/4,4270.html

Rich said...

"He attacked the canvas with his paint!"...

Thanks for this great educational video.

Pyracantha said...

About the survival of ancient art as the ONLY thing...not at all. A vast amount of ancient and classical literature and texts has survived, everything from commercial bills and government documents to long histories and great poetic epics. Homer and Vergil weren't made of stone but they are just as much of a legacy as the ancient artwork.

James Gurney said...

Pyracantha, good point, and it's amazing how much information can be drawn from the "data" of ancient civilizations, as you say, commercial documents, or astronomical information. And in the case of the epics, the stories had been passed down orally by many people for a long time before people like Homer wrote them down.

Leo Mancini-Hresko said...

I saw this show today. It is so, so good. I am thoroughly impressed with seeing these things in person- what a fantastically versatile artist that clearly trained his students so well.