James Harvey
James Harvey (American, 1929-1965)
James Harvey was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1929, and within a year his family moved to Detroit, Michigan. While attending the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvey received a Fulbright Grant to study in Egypt. His time traveling in the Middle East greatly impacted his artwork, visible in in his highly abstracted landscapes and forms in distinctive 'hot and dry' tones. His signature heavy impasto paint application suggests a frenzied bazaar with a nod to the influence of Arabic calligraphy.
After completing his education in Chicago, Harvey moved back to Detroit to and designed window displays for J.L. Hudson. He then moved to New York to pursue his career as an artist and began regularly exhibiting his abstract expressionist paintings at the Graham Gallery. He simultaneous took a job as a commercial artist in the studio of industrial and packaging designer Egmont Arens, where he worked with a team to redesign the Philip Morris cigarette package.
While working las a freelance designed for fellow Egmont Arens alums Whitney Stuart and William Gunn, Harvey created the box design for Brillo Pads. These boxes were made famous when they were used by pop artist Andy Warhol in 1964 at his "Soap-Box Show" or "Stable Gallery Show", which is largely seen as Warhol's official entrance into the New York high art world.
When Harvey saw his design in the gallery, he laughed it off, according to a Print magazine article "Shadow Boxer." (Link: https://www.printmag.com/design-resources/shadow_boxer/).
The press release issued by the Graham Gallery, who was then representing Harvey, stated: “It is galling enough for Jim Harvey, an abstract expressionist, to see that a pop artist is running away with the ball, but when the ball happens to be a box designed by Jim Harvey, and Andy Warhol gets the credit for it, well, this makes Jim scream: ‘Andy is running away with my box.' What’s one man’s box, may be another man’s art.”
James Harvey died six months after his November 1964 show at Graham Gallery. The New York Times review referred to his work as “dynamic, restless, and painted with rich skill".
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