Harry Anderson (1906-1996)

Illustrator Harry Anderson was born in 1906 in Chicago to Swedish parents. Talent for mathematics seemed to run in the family, so young Harry naturally later chose it for his college major, studying at the University of Illinois in 1925. Then he took an art course as an easy counterpoint to the math classes, and discovered both a talent and a love for drawing.

With the change in major came a change in venue.  He moved to Syracuse, New York, to attend the Syracuse School of Art in 1927.  It was a classical art education with the entire first year devoted to drawing from casts -- a practice of presenting the student with a bust or other piece of sculpture in various lighting and having them render it in different media.  It is a grueling technique despised by most students for its repetitious boredom, but it instills basic drawing skills that are crucial to an illustrator's success.  With the second year's classes, came figure drawing and anatomy classes as detailed as those for medical students; more fundamentals that stood him in good stead his entire career.

At Syracuse he met and roomed with Tom Lovell who became a lifelong friend and an important illustrator in his own right.  They graduated with honors and moved to New York to share a studio and make their fortune.  Unfortunately, this was 1931 and the Depression was in full force.  Anderson sold candy at night and peddled his art to agencies during the day.  It took him over a year to make his first magazine sale, and several more years before he felt established enough to move back home to Chicago.

With some New York magazine sales behind him, he joined an art service agency that found work for its artists in return for a portion of the fee.  By 1937 Anderson was working on national ad campaigns like the one for Sealed Power Piston Rings in 1938.  He was also much in demand for story illustrations for the major magazines.  His work appeared in Collier's, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, The Saturday Evening Post and others. The images were on a par with the best work being done at the time.

He married his wife, Ruth Huebel, around 1940.  She worked in the same building as Harry and posed for him on one occasion.  The following year he left the agency and joined the studio of Haddon Sundblom -- famous for his Coca-Cola Santa Claus paintings.  He was too old for military service but he did contribute one poster to the war effort.  The purchase of a home in Highland Park during this period led to a second fork in his career path.  Anderson had no time to do the repair work needed, and a handyman was hired.  It was through this man that the Andersons renewed their religious faith.

He and Ruth joined the Seventh Day Adventist Church and in 1944 Harry was asked if he would contribute to their publishing efforts.  Their pastor sent samples of Anderson's illustrations to the denomination's Review and Herald Publishing Company, publishers of inspirational books and study materials.  The Review's art director, Terence K. Martin, had long had the idea of showing Christ as a tangible presence in modern times, in modern day settings.  When he saw Anderson's samples, he knew he had an artist who could bring that idea to life.  Thus Anderson began his career in religious art, still illustrating for magazines to supplement his income.

The next year, his most famous image was crafted. What Happened to Your Hand? was done for a children's book in 1945 and immediately touched the hearts of that audience.  The adults in charge of the publishing program were less enthusiastic; some even considering it near-blasphemous to show Christ in the present day.  Cooler heads prevailed and Anderson spent the rest of his active career dividing his efforts between commercial assignments at his premium wages, and religious ones done for love and for minimal payment.

The inner peace that allowed Anderson to make his choice to contribute his time and effort at virtually minimum wage was evident in his paintings and in his depiction of Jesus.  However, this dedication and calm is present in all of his work.  As an important and popular illustrator, he is almost unique in the gentleness of his images.  Quite capable of depicting nearly anything, his choice of assignments and his approach to them was always in line with the dictates of his heart.  Not many people can live their lives the way they want to. It seems that Anderson did.  He enjoyed the same quiet, focused strength in his private life that's evident in his art.

He was featured in a 1956 issue of American Artist magazine and received awards from several art associations throughout his career, including the prestigious New York Art Directors Club.  In 1994 he was inducted into the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame.

In the Sixties he began painting calendars for Exxon Oil company (then Esso) and was able to stretch his artistic muscles on images based on Great Moments in American History and Great Moments in Early American Motoring.  Interestingly enough, Anderson was actively supporting himself with illustration work at a time when most of his generation were in forced retirement. Norman Rockwell is one of the few other illustrators who were still working and, coincidentally, also one of the very few who took a moral stance with his work and maintained it throughout his career.

In the mid-Sixties, Harry Anderson expanded his religious horizons to include the Mormon Church, for whom he created a mural for the 1964 New York World's Fair.  It was done in oil paints which he'd abandoned early is his career due to allergies to turpentine.  New thinners allowed him to explore the medium again.  He produced a dozen more oil paintings for the Mormons, many of which have been reproduced in one of their publications entitled the Family Home Evening.

In 1976, Review and Herald published Harry Anderson, The Man Behind the Paintings, from which much of this essay is taken.  The picture one gets from reading it is that of a man of conviction and great talent who was aware of both and didn't feel the need to discuss either.  His talents weren't limited to painting as he crafted models of ships and buggies, hooked rugs, carved flocks of birds, made furniture, and enjoyed many other dexterous skills.

Harry Anderson died in 1996 at the age of 90, the last of a generation of illustrators from The Golden Age of Magazine Illustration.  It is almost certain that he was one of the last active members of that group.  His work is still being circulated, and appreciated, today, in publications like Your Bible and You, and The Desire of Ages.