06 February 2012

Animal Illustration by Charley Harper

animals


You might recognize Charley Harper's style, as I do, from old Golden Books. I most prefer his simplified illustrations when jumbled in a collage, how about you?


I think the print below, for sale on his website, would look amazing in my future child's bedroom:

Charley Harper

From Wikipedia:
In a style he called “minimal realism”, Charley Harper captured the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements. He contrasted his nature-oriented artwork with the realism of John James Audubon, drawing influence from Cubism, Minimalism, Einsteinian physics and countless other developments in Modern art and science. His style distilled and simplified complex organisms and natural subjects, yet they are often arranged in a complex fashion. On the subject of his simplified forms, Harper noted:

"I don’t think there was much resistance to the way I simplified things. I think everybody understood that. Some people liked it and others didn’t care for it. 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."

In 1964, Harper designed two tile murals in Cincinnati that are inspiring me to create a tile mosaic in my future home. For those of you in the area, you can find them in the John Weld Peck Federal Building. The murals include over 100 American animal species!

Charley Harper

Charley Harper

Charley Harper

Charley Harper
I especially love this speeding bunny.

First photo: Mohawk on flickr
All mural photos: Heroine_Chic on flickr

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