Harvey Dunn was born on a homestead in Kingsbury County, South Dakota Territory on March 8, 1884.
For over sixteen years Harvey Dunn lived with his parents, Tom and Bersha Dun and with his sister Caroline, brother Roy were they had settled in on 160 underdeveloped acres south of the rail line between Manchester and De Smet along the Redstone creek.
The children were enrolled in the one room rural School of Esmond Township where Harvey started showing his artistic talent. He endlessly sketched on the school’s blackboard. It was noted the teacher had to hide her chalk box from him to conserve her supply.
As a young man, Harvey studied at the Chicago Art institute from 1902 to 1904. It was here where Harvey Dunn met Howard Pyle, widely recognized as America’s foremost illustrator, came to the institute to deliver a lecture . Howard Pyle was impressed with Dunn’s drawings that he invited him to attend classes held by Howard Pyle in his studio in Wilmington, Delaware.
Like his teacher, Dunn became more of an illustrator and was very much in demand illustrating for popular periodicals as Scribners, Collier’s Weekly, Century, Outing and others.
In his late years Harvey Dunn sought to pass on Pyle’s philosophy and became a teacher in his own right. One of his most successful students was Dean Cornwell (who will be the next featured artist ).
Harvey Dunn died on October29, 1952 at the age of 66.The prairie farm boy who became one of the world’s foremost artist/ illustrator.
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