Charley Harper

Charley Harper The OFFICIAL page of the Charley Harper Art Studio
1922 - 2007 Charley Harper (August 4, 1922 - June 10, 2007) had an alternative way of looking at nature.
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His serigraphs were large expanses of rich color, which gave the viewer a very different perspective on the animal kingdom. A conservationist as well as an artist, Harper revealed the unique aspects of his wildlife subjects through highly stylized geometric reduction. Harper said he was "the only wildlife artist who has never been compared to Audubon," yet his wildlife art was just as instructive

- the only difference was that Harper laced his lessons with humor. Harper believed that humor made it easier to encourage changes in our attitudes and awareness of environmental concerns. There was a rare and delightful playfulness in Harper's artwork. There was also graphic genius. Harper said, "When I look at a wildlife or nature subject, I don't see feathers, fur, scapulars or tail coverts - none of that. I see exciting shapes, color combinations, patterns, textures, fascinating behavior and endless possibilities for making interesting pictures. I regard the picture as an ecosystem in which all the elements are interrelated, interdependent, perfectly balanced, without trimming or unutilized parts; and herein lies the lure of painting: in a world of chaos, the picture is one small rectangle in which the artist can create an ordered universe." Reared on a West Virginia farm, Harper developed an early appreciation and love of animals as well as design. He attended West Virginia Wesleyan College and graduated from the Cincinnati Art Academy, where he also taught for many years. Gradually, Harper began to lose his interest in realism. "I felt shackled by the laws of perspective and shading and decided that the constant attempt to create the illusion of three dimensions on the two-dimensional plane of the picture was limiting me as an artist. Realistic painting persuades the viewer that he is looking into space rather than at a flat surface. It denies the picture plane, which I affirm and use as an element of design. Wildlife art has been dominated by realism, but I have chosen to do it differently because I think flat, hard-edge and simple." In his artwork, Harper imaginatively investigated the similarities between human and wild animal behaviors, but completely without anthropomorphism. "I learn as much as I can about the creatures that interest me, and they all do. I observe them and fmd out how they interact with each other and their environments and ask myself, 'What if?'"

🌺 National Hummingbird Day 🌺Tiny. Mighty. On the move.We hope you are having a wonderful Labor Day weekend.As summer win...
09/05/2026

🌺 National Hummingbird Day 🌺
Tiny. Mighty. On the move.
We hope you are having a wonderful Labor Day weekend.
As summer winds down, don’t forget our fearless hummingbirds — tiny, but mighty.
A few things worth knowing: a ruby-throat weighs about as much as a penny. It can hover, fly backward, and beat its wings up to 80 times a second. That blur is how it holds still long enough to drink. They are pollinators as much as they are showpieces. Keep feeders clean, skip red dye in the nectar, and leave native tubular flowers standing a little longer. They are tanking up for the trip.
Ruby-throated hummingbirds that spend summer in the eastern United States and southern Canada head south now. Most winter in southern Mexico and Central America — from Mexico through Guatemala and on toward Costa Rica and Panama. Some follow the Gulf Coast. Others cross the Gulf of Mexico in one nonstop flight of about 500 miles. Early September is peak passage through Ohio. A full feeder this week is not a luxury. It is fuel
Charley Harper caught that pause in midair in Little Sipper. “The hovering ruby-throated hummingbird sips nectar from a morning glory, enjoying a breakfast beverage, a motionless in-flight meal, the power of the flower. These hummers beat their wings as fast as 80 times per second to hold their bills still for sipping.”
Help them on their way. Then look up.
Artwork: Charley Harper, Little Sipper

08/27/2026

Something familiar comes alive. 🐞

Remembering A Beautiful Soul: Dolly PartonAs we celebrate National Park Week — a week-long tribute to the 110th birthday...
08/26/2026

Remembering A Beautiful Soul: Dolly Parton

As we celebrate National Park Week — a week-long tribute to the 110th birthday of the National Park Service — we also hold space for a profound loss.

Dolly Parton spent a lifetime mixing music, life, and meaning into her art. Her determination to be fully herself — and her quiet, steady advocacy for literacy, community, nature, and kindness — reminds us that with every success we can find ways to give back. We send our warmest love and deepest support to Dolly’s family and to everyone feeling this loss.

Charley Harper’s 1979 Isle Royale National Park poster captures wolves moving through a birch forest, moose locking antlers, and the quiet drama of a remote island ecosystem in Lake Superior. Isle Royale is one of America’s most isolated parks — a rugged archipelago of one large island and more than 400 smaller ones, established in 1940. It is home to the longest continuous predator-prey study in the world: the relationship between wolves and moose, carefully observed since 1958. Charley shows those tense moments where the moose, dominating their territory, share the land with the same predators waiting for a moment of weakness.

Dolly recorded a moving version of “There’ll Be Peace in the Valley for Me,” and it feels especially fitting here. The song was written in 1939 by Thomas A. Dorsey, the father of modern gospel music, for Mahalia Jackson. He composed it after watching animals graze peacefully together in a valley while riding a train through southern Indiana, wondering why people could not live the same way. In the lyrics, the wolves become tame, the lion lies down with the lamb, and peace is possible.

Rest in peace, Dolly.
This one is for you.

Happy 110th Birthday to the National Park Service! 🎉In the 1970s though the 1980s, Charley Harper was commissioned by th...
08/25/2026

Happy 110th Birthday to the National Park Service! 🎉

In the 1970s though the 1980s, Charley Harper was commissioned by the National Park Service HarpersFerryNPS (under then-director Marc Sagan) to create a series of 10 posters celebrating the incredible diversity of America’s national parks.

Charley traveled to the parks for extensive field research. He needed to understand everything within each ecosystem in order to distill such complex groupings of plants, fauna, and wildlife into his signature style — all with his beloved Edie by his side. Charley nearly shows everything reflected on the water’s surface from the sky above. Notice the animals in the background appear upside down as the hardworking beaver paddles along. With his masterful command of perspective, Charley creates another masterpiece filled with those fleeting moments we might otherwise miss — moments he preserves here for us to discover and delight in.

Charley’s scientific accuracy was unparalleled. His voice for conservation could not be stifled. And his wit and wisdom remain a pure delight for anyone who pauses to wonder how, what, and when he found the time to create such an extraordinary body of work.

This fall, those original National Park Service paintings will be on view for the first time in over 25 years in The Art of Charley Harper: Creatures Wild and Tame at the Cincinnati Art Museum (October 16, 2026 – March 7, 2027). And in tandem, Edie will receive her long-overdue first major retrospective, Edie McKee Harper: Modernist at Play, Taft Museum of Art (October 17, 2026 – January 24, 2027). Come experience both exhibitions. Stand in front of their work and you’ll understand why generations keep falling in love with Charley and Edie Harper.

There are many reasons we can share for visiting this wonderful exhibition, the one that stands out the most…Charley and Edie make you smile.😍

Here’s to Charley, Edie, and 110 years of dedicated service from our National Park Service stewards — protecting the wild places that continue to inspire us all. 🌲🦌🦅

🐅 Who Dey! 🐅Two preseason wins, and the Bengals are already looking sharp—disciplined, physical, and dangerous. The JUNG...
08/23/2026

🐅 Who Dey! 🐅Two preseason wins, and the Bengals are already looking sharp—disciplined, physical, and dangerous. The JUNGLE is open for business.

That same energy lives in Charley Harper’s Cool Carnivore silk screen print (1979). Charley illustrated many educational books and, in the process, discovered his true calling: the natural world. He advocated for every creature—wild or tame, large or small—and embraced conservation long before it entered mainstream conversation. Inspired by the plight of the Bengal tiger, he created this print at a time when the animal’s future looked bleak.

“A cat in the water? The Bengal tiger likes it and you would too if you had to wear a fur coat in the steamy jungle. But when your coat is a status symbol, many would help you off with it. One maharajah helped 1150 tigers off with their coats. Others, to remain competitive, included cubs and fetuses in their tallies. In this century, hunting and habitat destruction have dramatically decreased the Bengal count. Keep cool, big Bengal—and beware of man, the ominous omnivore.”�— Charley Harper

Nearly fifty years later, the story has shifted. India’s wild tiger population has more than doubled since 2006—from roughly 1,400 to about 3,680—making it home to roughly three-quarters of the world’s remaining wild tigers. Serious, sustained conservation work is the reason. The recovery is real, even if the species is still endangered and challenges remain.�Protect the real Bengal in the wild.

Keep the energy rolling for our Bengals in the Cincinnati Jungle!�WHO DEY!!!

The Honeymoon Trip Begins 🦅On the road, the Harpers headed into the great wide open — embarking across a landscape that ...
08/11/2026

The Honeymoon Trip Begins 🦅

On the road, the Harpers headed into the great wide open — embarking across a landscape that was wild and free.

In the months ahead, we’ll share discoveries from this two-year journey with the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Taft Museum of Art . These institutions have worked with a focus to bring long-unnoticed works and stories of Charley and Edie into the light.

Charley’s process will be shown through several of his most recognizable pieces. He would start with a sketch on scrap paper, develop it through successive maquette studies, and arrive at complex ecosystems on canvas — works that somehow hold more than seems possible. From scrap paper to masterpiece!

Edie called herself a Jill of all trades. Here at the Harper Originals archive, we believe she mastered them all. The Taft will feature her early photography, thanks in part to FotoFocus Cincinnati . A true innovator, she composed, shot, developed, and printed her own images, keeping full creative control. We’ll share insights into her path toward the powerful abstract black-and-white and color works that followed in the late 1950s.

Yesterday we shared Charley’s 1947 original Grand Canyon painting, which later inspired the July 1952 Ford Times cover — the first in the year-long 24-painting series Horseless Carriage Adventures.

Edie was there for every part of it. She captured the pivotal moment when Charley turned away from the Grand Canyon and began painting from his mind’s eye early on their honeymoon. When they returned home, they kept working side by side: When Charley landed the Ford Motor Company Times, Edie mixed the paints and hand-pulled the silk screens along with Charley for the Ford customers writing in to the magazine requesting his art.

As Charley would often say,
“Ford Times… gave me a break. The best break of my life.”
— Charley Harper 1991
Stay with us as we follow the Harpers into the wide open.

Image Credits
Grand Canyon Silk Screen, Ford Times Cover 1952
Grand Canyon Ford Times Cover, July 1952
Charley Harper, 1947 – photograph by Edie Harper

🎨🌿 Happy Heavenly Birthday, Charley.Today Charles Burton Harper would have been 104.For two years at Harper Originals , ...
08/04/2026

🎨🌿 Happy Heavenly Birthday, Charley.
Today Charles Burton Harper would have been 104.
For two years at Harper Originals , we have been preparing for his and Edie Harper's exhibitions at the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Taft Museum of Art. So many revelations have come to the surface—each sweeter than the last.
He built a successful career as an illustrator for Ford Motor Company , where he became a wildly popular artist for Ford Times magazine. He returned to his alma mater, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, as an instructor for over twenty years.
In 1953 they had a son, Brett Harper, named after Edward Weston’s son, whom they met on their honeymoon trip across the USA. Brett has kept their mission of conservation and love for the natural world alive.
Charley worked, as he often said, in the “what ifs.” So many of the pictures he imagined almost appear as if they could have been computer-generated—yet he and Edie never used one. He infused his work with scientific rigor and a “dash of whimsy,” bringing humor and smiles. Charley invited us to pause and consider the diligence each of us could bring to our own lives.
We are excited that all 10 of Charley’s National Park Service works will be on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum with the help of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park . Charley and Edie traveled to the parks themselves, documenting the wildlife and flora. Edie was essential to the field research, and Charley often said she could solve problems in his work whenever he got stuck.
Glacier National Park was the first of his work for the poster series depicting summer at the edge of the ice.
Charley said, “Glacier Bay of course is a place if you’re lucky, you will see the humpback whale because they go there to feed in the summer and you got to also, of course, for sure see some spectacular Glaciers.”
The original acrylic on canvas packs a wide variety of wildlife into a single frame—a complete habitat rendered with the clarity and wit that defined his best work.
What is your favorite hidden animal you can spot? Share a Charley memory with us—we would love to hear from you.
Happy heavenly birthday, Charley.

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1741 E Kemper Road
Cincinnati, OH
45246

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