charley harper: greatness of minimal nature
irudia
“There’s some who want to count all the feathers in the wings and then others who never think about counting the feathers, like me”.

Charley Harper


Harper was born and raised on a farm in West Virginia. He studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and on his first day in class he met young artist Edie Mckee. They married as soon as they graduated. Harper was an outstanding student and he won a grant to travel the country. He made use of the grant to visit many natural parks on honeymoon. That’s when he started to develop his very personal style of nature illustrations. Unbelievable as it may seem, for many years magazine editors rejected his illustrations as being “too modern”. Cubism, geometry and minimalism seemingly had nothing to do nature. Thankfully, Harper did not throw in the towel and he continued to fire away at capturing the appearance and essence of animals, their colours and lines using as few elements as possible. He defined his style as minimal realism and nowadays it’s impossible for us to understand nature illustrations without referring to him. A recommendation to finish with: If you can, get The Golden Book of Biology. Essential reading and viewing.