Harvey Gordon

Lives and works in Glen Arbor, Michigan

BIO

Harvey Gordon (b. 1941) was born and grew up in Flint, Michigan. He has lived and worked in Glen Arbor since 2004. He attended the University of Michigan, the Cranbrook Art Academy (BFA), and the University of North Carolina (MFA). He taught studio art at UNC, the University of Maryland, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and Glen Oaks Community College, where he also headed the Art Department, headed the visiting artist program, co-chaired the art purchase committee, and edited the college art and literary publication. His writing on art and culture has appeared in Arts Magazine, American Artist, The Artist’s Magazine, The New Art Examiner, Modern Age, and The Kalamazoo Gazette, and in the correspondence sections of The New Yorker, The New Republic, Commentary, The New Criterion, The New York Observer, and The Weekly Standard.

Harvey Gordon’s paintings have been featured in eleven solo exhibitions in eight different New York City galleries and in seven Michigan museums, including Grand Rapids, Flint, Kalamazoo, and Traverse City. They are included in private, corporate, and public collections in this country and abroad and have received several awards and grants.

STATEMENT

At this point in the history of art, and based on my almost sixty five years of the study and practice of the art of painting, my conviction has been that an authentic work of art needs to integrate the clear and convincing representation of its content, or subject matter, with a manner of execution that openly asserts the means and method of its creation. In painting, that manner of execution includes revealing the nature of the medium, the process and tool by which it is applied, and the mixing of its colors. This conclusion was reached by close study of the work of, among many others, Vermeer, the Post-Impressionists Cezanne, VanGogh, and Seurat, and various 20th century painters.

In our free society, artists are at liberty to choose their own subject matter. That freedom may be compromised and constrained by economic and other concerns, but content may not be ignored or eliminated if the purpose of the maker is to create authentic works of art. Subject matter in my paintings is derived from my visual experience. My goal with each painting is to integrate the representation of a particular experience with a surface comprised of distinct, graceful, rhythmic brush marks. After the values are established, all the colors are mixed on the surface of the painting by transparent layers of the primaries. The only paints utilized are black, white, and the three primaries, and there is no physical mixing of the paints.

My gratitude for the opportunity to pursue a career in art and spend a lifetime as an artist is immense and enduring.

—Harvey Gordon, 2026