The farm boy who became one of America's foremost illustrators.

"A Driver of Oxen"

South Dakota Art Museum
Oil on Canvas
26" x 40"













"The Prisoners"

National Museum of American Illustration
Oil on Canvas
35 1/2" x 23 1/4"
Signed/ Dated Centre Left
Created as an Elgin Watch advertisement


Harvey Dunn (1884-1952) was the son of homesteaders in the Red Stone Valley of the Dakota Territory. He was born in a shanty on a land claim and seemed destined to become a farmer until discovering his artistic abilities.

In 1901, the seventeen-year-old fulfilled his parents' wishes by enrolling at the South Dakota Agricultural College but soon left for the Art Institute of Chicago (1902-04).

After meeting Howard Pyle at an Art Institute Lecture, Dunn accepted an invitation to join the artist's summer program in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania (1904-06). Dunn was deeply influenced by his mentor, recalling that, “Pyle’s main purpose was to quicken our souls so that we might render service to the majesty of simple things.”

In 1906, at the age of twenty-two, with Pyle’s encouragement, Harvey Dunn set out to build a career as an illustrator. He met with almost immediate success, attracting advertising commissions and illustrative work from major companies and such magazines as Century, Collier’s, Harper’s New Monthly, Scribner’s, and Outing.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION

He was both reliable and prolific, as exemplified by the more than two hundred and fifty illustrations he painted for the Saturday Evening Post over the years.

Harvey Dunn married in 1908, and settled in Wilmington until 1914, when he and his wife moved to Leonia, New Jersey. It was there that he and Charles S. Chapman co-founded the Leonia School of Illustration while continuing to service clients in New York City. Students included Dean Cornwell and Arthur Fuller.

He later taught at the Grand Central School of Art where his students included the prominent illustrators John Clymer, Amos Sewell, Harold von Schmidt and Saul Tepper.

During World War I, Dunn was commissioned as a captain and was one of eight war artists assigned to the American Expeditionary Forces in France. In 1919, at the end of hostilities, many of his war paintings were turned over to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

REMEMBERING THE HOMESTEAD YEARS

Returning to New Jersey, he recommenced his career - producing paintings of such quality within short deadlines that his art editors were left in awe. He also made frequent trips back to South Dakota to paint the prairies, recapturing the land he had known as a youth before the changes brought by development and highways.

He continued to teach, not only in his own studio but also at the Grand Central School of Art in New York and occasionally at the Art Students League.

After 1939, Dunn's career as an illustrator slowed, and he devoted more time to easel painting. He was a member to the Society of Illustrators and served as its president in 1948-1949.

In the 1950s the artist donated forty-two pieces of his work to the South Dakota State University, including paintings for book and magazine illustrations, World War I illustrations, portraits, and prairie paintings. In 1970, the South Dakota Memorial Art Center (South Dakota Art Museum) was constructed to house Dunn’s collection. Since then, the Dunn collection has grown to over one hundred works of art.

On 29th October, 1952, Harvey Dunn died at his home in Tenefly, NJ.