Choose a mood and the room itself answers — the light cools or warms, the air changes pace, and only the works that carry that feeling step forward from the dark. Everything else recedes into shadow.
The Self-Taught Visionary of the American Frontier In the annals of nineteenth-century American art, few stories are as compelling or as rugged as that of Chester Harding. A man whose physical presence was as imposing as his artistic legacy, Harding stood well over six feet three inches tall, a towering figure who embodied the very spirit of the expanding American frontier. Born in 1792 in Conway, Massachusetts, his journey to becoming
a master of portraiture was not paved with formal academy prestige, but rather with the grit and determination of a self-made man. Before he ever held a fine sable brush for professional use, Harding’s hands were seasoned by diverse and demanding trades; he worked as a turner, a chairmaker, a peddler, and even an innkeeper. It was through the humble practice of sign painting in Pittsburgh that his eye for composition and color began t…
