Book Review: Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life

Charley Harper is an artist with a very unique style he calls "minimal realism". He's able to capture the essence of his subjects with minimal visual elements.

The painting of birds caught my attention with the clean smooth lines which resembles vector work. His colour choices are from observation in life and the resulting image is always bold and striking. Many of his pieces are on nature.

The author Todd Oldham only discovered Charley Harper's work in 2001. Since then, he has been collecting all the work he has ever published. The result is this impressive 424-page book that collects work that span the entire career of Charley Harper. It includes the commissions he done for Ford Motors, schools, advertising agencies, etc.

There are two editions for this art book. The first is a 5.5kg book published in 2007, the year Charley Harper passed away. The newer edition, which I have, is the shrunken down version which is lighter, more handy and affordable. The construction of the book is great and all the illustrations are brilliantly reproduced.

The contents are as follows:

• Conversation with Charley Harper
• Betty Crocker's Dinner For Two Cook Book
• The Giant Golden Book of Biology
• The Animal Kingdom
• Ford Times Magazine
• Birds & Words
• Advertising & Promotions
• Mosaic Murals
• Paintings
• Posters

There's a nice long interview written by Todd Oldham which is also translated in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Charley Harper has published a few books before so there might be some duplication here. If you're just intent on getting one book, make this the one. It's a beautiful, timeless art book.

Check out more Charley Harper art on Flickr, Charley Harper Art Studio and my preview for the book.

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Places to get Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life:
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