​J. N. BARTFIELD GALLERIES

Harvey T. Dunn

Born in a sod house in the Dakota Territory, Harvey Dunn sought to immortalize the “sodbusters” in paint as they labored to wrest lives and livelihoods from the harsh prairies. Student of Howard Pyle, contemporary and friend of N C Wyeth, teacher of Dean Cornwell, Harold Von Schmidt and countless others, Dunn’s skill at pictorial narration makes him indispensable in American art. Dunn illustrated classic adventure literature, was an artist in the trenches in World War I and was was especially attracted to the beauties of the prairie he knew as a boy. You can see this in full flower in Prairie Farmer, a canvas that captures, on one hand, the muscular straining of the team of horses, and, on the other, the glories of the fresh day, the clouds, and the wind in the tall wheat, where a single flower has opened itself to the sun.