This fall and winter, the James A. Michener Art Museum exhibits the work of celebrated illustrators Norman Rockwell and Charles Hargens. Norman Rockwell in the 1940s: A View of the American Homefront and Charles Hargens: American Illustrator are on view at the Museum’s New Hope, Union Square location October 19, 2007 through February 10, 2008.
“These two exhibits provide a unique opportunity for viewers to see the work of two well-known and accomplished American illustrators, both of whom had a hand in creating the popular mythology of our culture,” said Brian H. Peterson, Senior Curator at the Michener Art Museum. “Illustrators have often helped us define how we see ourselves, and the work of these two artists also opens a door to America’s past—the Old West and the Revolutionary period as interpreted by Hargens, World War II at home as seen by Rockwell.”
Hargens was a longtime friend of Ben’s and his portrait of Hargens is included in the exhibition.
The Michener describes Hargens this way: “Over the course of a long and industrious career, Charles Hargens (1893-1997) focused his illustrations on themes of the Old West and the American Revolutionary period. His drawings and paintings of cowboys driving cattle, Native Americans against the backdrop of Mount Rushmore and patriots huddled in front of a campfire quickly built him a reputation as one of America’s finest illustrators. His work regularly appeared on the front of the Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Country Gentleman and Boys’ Life. He created hundreds of book covers for prestigious publishing houses and his work became the mainstay of Stetson Hat advertisements.”
Charles Hargens: American Illustrator, organized by the Michener Art Museum, gathers more than a dozen paintings including works used as covers for the Saturday Evening Post. The exhibition also features a charcoal-on-paper portrait of Hargens by Ben Solowey, a publisher’s promotional flyer for Portrait of a Marriage by Pearl S. Buck (for which Hargens illustrated the novel’s cover), plus magazines and photographs related to the artist’s work.
Remembered as a Bucks County, Pennsylvania artist by many, Hargens spent his youth in the Black Hills of South Dakota on a sprawling ranch near the Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Sioux Indians. As the son of a frontier surgeon, Hargens developed close friendships with the Indians, who—while awaiting treatment from his father—served as subjects for the young artist’s first drawings. After high school in Iowa, Hargens moved to Philadelphia to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he became a star pupil and dear friend of the renowned painter Daniel Garber. In 1940, Hargens moved to Carversville in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and became an integral part of its growing arts community.
The president of Dakota Wesleyan University best summed up Hargens’ talent as a “mastery of realism, historically accurate detail and ability to capture the spirit of place.” According to the illustrator himself, “I was fascinated by the doings of people. I wanted to depict life as it was, life as it is, life as it would be. That human element… was the determining factor for me.”
