Charles Harper (American Modern Artist)

Charley Harper (August 4, 1922 - June 10, 2007) was a Cincinnati-based American Modernist artist. He was best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters and book illustrations.
Born in Frenchton, West Virginia in 1922, Harper's upbringing on his family farm influenced his work to his last days. He left his farm home to study art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and won the academy’s first Stephen H. Wilder Traveling Scholarship. While at the Academy, and supposedly on the first day, Charley met fellow artist Edie Mckee, whom he would marry shortly after graduation in 1947.
Charley and Edie spent their honeymoon traveling the country, mainly in the west and south, being able to do so because of the Stephen H. Wilder Scholarship the Academy awarded to Charley for post-graduate travels. Charley Harper returned to the Art Academy of Cincinnati as a teacher and also worked for a commercial firm before working on his own. He and his wife worked out of their Roselawn and Finneytown homes, and later, with their only child Brett Harper, formed Harper Studios.



During his career, Charley Harper illustrated numerous books, notably The Golden Book of Biology, magazines such as Ford Times, as well as many prints, posters, and other works. As his subjects are mainly natural, with birds prominently featured, Charley often created works for many nature-based organizations such as the Cincinnati Zoo and national parks. Charley Harper died on Sunday, June 10, 2007 after contending with pneumonia for several months.



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.

"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."

Cher Shaffer (folk artist)

"This must have been done by a famous child,” someone reportedly said after seeing the outsider works by self-taught artist Cher Shaffer.

Shaffer was born in Atlanta, Georgia on a small farm. Her mother, who was of Native American decent, accompanied Cher on many of her long walks and taught her about the woods and lands that they both cherished. Cher's mother shared with her young daughter the beliefs and customs of her Native American heritage. Her father was German and a descendant of Martin Luther as well as a practicing Baptist. Through this parental combination Cher developed a deep respect and appreciation for nature and it's Creator. She began painting shortly after the death of her gifted mother. As Cher explains this event opened a "Pandora's box" of emotions and memories. Painting these memories seemed the best way to express and preserve her cherished childhood.

In 1978 with no formal training, Cher began transferring her memories to canvas. It was a significant factor in healing her grief over the loss of her mom. As in the case of happy childhoods our memories tend to be tinted with a hint of fantasy. Her early works are depictions of church gatherings, warm holidays, festive celebrations and the everyday chores of life on a rural farm. They are idyllic and flavored by the innocence of youth. Cher's work developed and began a departure from these traditional folk art scenes into true fantasy interpretations. Electric color with smooth graceful lines evolved.

In 1985 Cher's life again took a tragic turn. Due to extreme exhaustion Cher's heart failed. She emerged from this terrifying event with a greater sense of responsibility for what she would leave behind. Her work began to explore the question of death. Ghostly images began to haunt her style. She describes her work from this period as coming from a "primal level". In addition to painting, Cher also works in wood, stone, mixed media and designs three-dimensional creations such as dolls and masks.

As Cher explains she is a "double- minded" artist. One side of her art is carefree happy idealist and the other is a little on the wild side. You never know what will come out. While being interviewed by Millard Lampell, co-founder of the movement to recognize Appalachian Art, concerning her art training or lack of it she replied, "When people ask me if I am a trained artist, I have to laugh, I'm not a trained artist, I'm barely civilized."

Richard Basil Mock (Political Satire Modern Artist)

Richard Mock is best known for his linocut cartoon illustration editorials in the New York Times between 1978 and 1996. He worked with United Nations and the Wall Street Journal in doing pieces on subjects such as child abuse, population control, and AIDS prevention. He did a series about September 11th. In many ways, he is an activist with the sole purpose of using art to get through to people and change the world around him.

"It took me a long time to accept the need for structure in my painting. Now I feel an empathy with mathematicians and physicists in taking pleasure from order. There's a meditative aspect to order and to rhythm in painting."

Mock was named the official portrait painter of the 1980 Olympics.

Born in 1844 in Long Beach, California, Mock earned his bachelor's degree, studying lithography and block printing at the University of Michigan. He eventually settled in New York City. There he was featured on the cover of many magazines and was grouped with the "Outlaw Printmakers".

"I don't make preparatory drawings for the linocuts. For me, the cutting is just heavy drawing. The cutting slows the process down and my brain can automatically compose. The physical force of cutting is conveyed in the image."

His paintings and prints are in many public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), The New York Public Library (NYC), and The Victoria and Albert Museum (London).

"In painting, there has to be a physical connection from the painter through the paint itself... or it just doesn't work."

I feel Mock fits in this folk art collection, because he speaks for the people. The same as "folk music" has, he makes his linocuts to be simple and rooted in tradition to connect to people as they've been connected to for centuries.

"It took me a long time to accept the need for structure in my painting. Now I feel an empathy with mathematicians and physicists in taking pleasure from order. There's a meditative aspect to order and to rhythm in painting."

Dimus Hall (folk artist)

"My talent is a gift from God. You are born with it. It doesn't matter who you are, or how beautiful you are, we all are going to die. But your work remains and will be seen for years after you have gone."

Dilmus Hall was one of 13 children born in 1900 in a farming and blacksmithing family in rural Oconee Country Georgia. As a child, he sculpted animals from clay and also from flour mixed with pine pitch bled from trees on his parents land. Hall's father disapproved of his son's artistic interests, as they were impractical for the family's farming needs. He eventually left the family farm to work in a coal mine. In 1917 he joined the United States Army Medical Corps and served in Europe as a stretcher-bearer. His exposure to European arts and crafts had tremendous impact, and Hall vowed to contribute to an artistic heritage of his own. Upon his return to Athens, Georgia, Hall's European experience met his familiarity with African American craft and imagery, and a richly iconographic body of paintings and sculptures ensued. He worked as a hotel bell captain and waiter, a sorority house busboy on the University of Georgia campus, and as a fabricator of concrete blocks. The latter resulted in a series of concrete sculptures that joined the pencil drawings he was producing at the time. In the art he made and in the manner in which he decorated his house, Dilmus Hall revealed an inherent belief in the spiritual nature of objects. While he was not aware of African history associated with such symbols as the cross and diamond, he used them and believed in their protective powers. His work and his home environment were living examples of African American conjuring culture, with its mix of Christianity and African traditions of empowering objects. Dilmus Hall believed he had a god-given creative talent all his life. He lived the belief that today's good work would "testify to the goodness of life after you're gone, yes."

Before being stopped by arthritis, Hall created concrete, metal and wood sculptures, some of the devil in various activities, and some of fanciful human and animal figures. After his arthritis became too painful for him to continue making sculptures, he began to make drawings. There is a large collection of color drawings from a sketch book. Dilmus died in 1987.

Carl McKenzie (folk artist)

Carl McKenzie was born on June 4, 1905 near Pine Ridge in Wolfe County Kentucky. He is a well known wood carver. Carving was McKenzie's full time occupation. At the age of ten he learned to whittle from his grandfather. He brought his early work to the Daniel Boone Trading Post, a tourist stop near Natural Bridge State Park, and soon it was selling so well that he could not keep up with demand. Carl carved whatever his fancy dictated, from the Statue of Liberty, waitresses, barnyard animals, biblical scenes and families of devils. He preferred white pine or birch for carving and favored color. He made his own brushes from split twigs and then covered his carvings with thick layers of bright paint applied in polka dots or splotches of red, green, yellow and black. Carl was a prolific carver and his work is much sought after. After suffering a stroke in 1992 he spent his last years in a nursing home before passing in 1998.