Harvey Dunn
Harvey Thomas Dunn NA (March 8, 1884 – October 29, 1952) was an American painter. He is best known for his prairie-intimate masterpiece, The Prairie is My Garden. In this painting, a mother and her son and daughter are out gathering flowers from the quintessential prairie of the Great Plains.
Early life
Dunn was born on a homestead farm near Manchester, South Dakota, in the county made famous by Laura Ingalls Wilder's descriptions of prairie life. The young man’s talent was first recognized by Ada Caldwell, an art instructor at South Dakota Agricultural College (presently South Dakota State University), which Dunn attended during 1901-1902. Urged by Caldwell, Dunn pursued his artistic studies in Wilmington, Delaware under the instruction of Howard Pyle. Dunn was one of a small group of Pyle's defining students who were to revolutionize the illustration world and today are collectively known as the Brandywine School. There he also met William James Aylward and Ernest Peixotto, artists that would later accompany him in the United States Army American Expeditionary Force.
