St. Mary’s Church

Additional Information

G. Harvey famously stated "My paintings have never been literal representations. They are part first-hand experience, and part dreams generated by those early stories I heard. They are a product of every place I have been, everything I have ever seen and heard." As Harvey believed his paintings represented personal connections to places and things, this exemplifies why his studies and drawings were so important to his creative process. According to Tim Taylor, Harvey’s son-in-law, every single painting he would do would have seven to ten iterations to it, from pen and ink to watercolor to quick oil sketch to final painting. It is in these studies where Harvey sets in place his emotion connections and feelings for his subject matter and it is in these studies where Harvey would figure out his compositional and color approaches for each work. In fact, one of the sketches consigned has a red dot in the image which represent the point of perspective he had determined for that particular work of art.

We are quite fortunate to bring to market an extensive collection of Harvey’s studies and drawings consigned directly from the Harvey estate. Since Harvey was very protective of these early steps in his artistic process, some of these are being seen for the first time. In these works of art, one can see all of the Harvey subject matter that he is so famous for and the very things he references in the above quote drawn from his grandfather’s stories of ranch life---lonesome cowboys, rural churches, rustic buildings, street scenes and quiet winter mornings. Along with these classic images, there are some unusual subjects as well, including A View Over the Kremlin Wall and the Harvard Bookstore. Over the Kremlin wall is a completed painting done by Harvey from his hotel room in Moscow before the fall of the wall.

These pieces are surely an important part of Western Art history and some even date back nearly forty years. We are quite proud to offer this important collection of G. Harvey drawings and studies for the first time. Every one of these works of art comes with an attached letter of authenticity from the estate, including what completed painting each piece was a study or a sketch for.

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DISCLAIMER

Please note that the first unframed photo is most accurate for color. Framed photographs are to show the frame and are not color corrected to the painting.

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