Last updated: January 19, 2021
Person
Charley Harper
© Charley Harper Art Studio
Quick Facts
Significance:
Graphic designer, painter, illustrator; creator of iconic national parks poster illustrations
Place of Birth:
Frenchton, West Virginia
Date of Birth:
August 4, 1922
Place of Death:
Cincinnati, Ohio
Date of Death:
June 10, 2007
Chances are you’ve seen some of artist Charley Harper's work. The bold colors and graphic shapes of his wildlife designs are immediately recognizable. He is known for the style he called “minimal realism,” in which he captured the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements. In the 1970s and 1980s, commissioned by the National Park Service's Harpers Ferry Center, Harper created 10 paintings for a series of national parks posters. These iconic posters had a lasting influence on the graphic identity of the National Park Service.
Harper grew up on a farm in Frenchton, West Virginia. Like many children, he drew to try to understand the world. He attended West Virginia Wesleyan College and then the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He was drafted halfway through and served as US Army scout in France and Germany during World War II. Even then he kept drawing. The unit's chaplain carried Harper's art kit into battle.
Harper returned from the war and attended the Art Students League in New York in 1946. He graduated from the art academy in 1947. That same year, he married classmate Edie McKee and embarked on a career in the art field. Harper freelanced for Ford Times magazine, which promoted automobile travel, creating interior illustrations and cover designs in his distinctive style. He also produced nature-themed commissions for conservation-focused organizations, including the Cincinnati Zoo, Wilderness Society, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory, Byrd Polar Research Center at The Ohio State University, the Entomology Foundation, Society for Ecological Restoration, Monteverde Cloud Forest School Foundation, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology. His paintings have appeared in illustrated ads, books, magazines, posters, prints, and murals as well as merchandise like notecards, calendars, puzzles, fabrics, and more.
In 1966 Harper wrote that if he hadn't become an artist, he would have been a conservationist. He achieved both––he became widely acknowledged as one of the twentieth century’s foremost visual spokespersons for conservation causes.
Explore Harper’s life and work through a virtual road trip and a scavenger hunt of the national parks posters guided by a National Park Service graphic designer.