Charley Harper
Master of “Minimal Realism”
In a world of chaos, the picture is one small rectangle in which the artist can create an ordered universe.
—Charley Harper
Charley Harper was born on August 4, 1922, in Frenchton, West Virginia. “Where I grew up, the only time you heard the word ‘art’ [was] if you were talking about somebody named Arthur,” he said. “It was about that bad. It was just not a career you want to aspire to.”
Harper’s lifelong artistic exploration, and appreciation, of nature wasn’t kickstarted by living on a farm (which he hated), but by a childhood discovery of water striders casting shadows in a creek near the farm.
In 1940, Harper met his future wife, Edie McKee. They sat next to each other in figure drawing class at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. As Harper described it, he and McKee got friendly; she invited him to her house for dinner; and “it went from there”.
World War II interrupted Harper’s artistic and romantic plans. He served for the United States Army as a reconnaissance scout in the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon of the 414th Regiment, 104th Infantry Division. “One of the things I did to keep from going nuts in the Army was draw stuff.” The late, great Ashley Bryan did the same thing as a stevedore for the Army. He talked about it on The Illustration Department Podcast.
After the war, Harper endeavored to establish an illustration career. But first, he and McKee tied the knot. On their three-month-long honeymoon, the Harpers traveled cross-country from California to Florida—camping, drawing, and photographing (among other activities) along the way. On a related note, why did no one tell me a honeymoon could last three months?
Upon his return from his epic honeymoon, Harper sent some of his paintings to (ironically enough) the Ford Motor Company. “They liked them,” he recalled, “and bought one or two of them. And that’s how that started.”