Harvey Thomas Dunn (American, 1884 to 1952)
Harvey Thomas Dunn was born in 1814 to homesteader parents in the Red Stone Valley in South Dakota. Raised in a sod house as a child he was required to work on the farm but despite these humble beginnings, Dunn desired a life as an artist. At an early age he earned his art tuition by “sod-busting” for neighboring homesteaders. By the age of 17 he left the farm to enroll in the South Dakota Agricultural College, and in 1902 enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago. Dunn is best known as an illustrator but was also a teacher and a graphic reporter on the front lines of World War I.
Information courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries, July 2009.