Anne Harvey

Anne Harvey (1916–1967) was an American painter who spent most of her life in Paris. Highly regarded there for her unique, original, and varying styles, which were not dictated by any major influences, her reclusive character, lack of self-promotion, and the fact that she was a woman, in an art world dominated by men, have left her now being relatively unknown.

Early life and education Harvey was born into an artistic family in Chicago in November 1916. Her father, Harry Harvey, was an advertising executive and author. Her mother, Dorothy Dudley Harvey, was a writer and poet, best known for having written a biography of Theodore Dreiser. She attended a progressive school in Chicago, together with her brother, Jason. Introduced to painting by her aunt, Katharine Dudley, she showed a talent for drawing and painting from her early years.

Move to Paris In 1928, she moved to Paris with her mother and aunt, who felt that their inheritance could go further there. Her mother had published an article on Constantin Brâncuși in the modernist magazine, The Dial, in 1927. Through her and her aunt she gradually met many artists, including Brâncuși and Jules Pascin, who did a drawing of her, as well as Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia, Joan Miró, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Léopold Survage, Louis Marcoussis, and Walker Evans, who photographed her. She studied under Léger but, after seeing her work, Matisse suggested that she work with Brâncuși instead. There are photographs, taken by Brâncuși, of Harvey in his studio and in 1934 she did a large drawing and a large painting of the sculptor in that studio. Both the drawing and the painting were based on a self-portrait photograph Brancusi had given to Harvey. In the drawing, she included many of the items in the studio that appeared in the photograph, while the painting omitted these.

Other drawings that she prepared in her early days in Paris included Still Life with a Cat; Woman with Cat; Shopfront, Night, Paris; and Buildings, Paris. All show examples of her love of complex overall patterns. This unique drawing style translated well to her paintings. Rooftops shows an outdoor scene of shapes and figures, some resembling roofs and others buildings entwined in branches. The painting indicates a strong departure from Realism, which was much in vogue in the US at the time. Another painting, Two Trees and a River, combines elements of impressionism and expressionism. The colours she used for many of her paintings are said to have been "unusual and subtle".

Exhibitions During her lifetime, her work was shown in only six exhibitions, both one-person and group shows. Two of the group shows were at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery in New York. These were the Exhibition by 31 Women in 1943 and The Women in 1945. In the Exhibition by 31 Women, she showed Still Life, a painting done in 1942. It is possible that Guggenheim knew of her work when they were both in Paris.

On the strength of these two exhibitions in New York she had her first solo exhibition, in Chicago in 1945, where she sold six paintings, despite not attending the show. Eleanor Jewett, reviewing it in the Chicago Daily Tribune, called it the introduction of “a new star to the art world.” She described Harvey’s draftsmanship as surpassing Matisse in certain drawings, and called the Portrait of Brancusi “revealing, gentle, and comprehensive.” The show included landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and drawings. André Masson wrote a preface to the exhibition.

Her final exhibition was in 1963 at the Galerie Janine Hao in Paris.