The Cincinnati Art Museum will mount its first comprehensive exhibition devoted to the work of Charley Harper, the Cincinnati-born artist whose career spanned six decades of mid-century modern illustration, painting, and printmaking. The Art of Charley Harper: Creatures Wild and Tame opens October 16, 2026, and remains on view through March 7, 2027, featuring approximately 150 works across multiple mediums.

Harper (1922–2007) built his reputation through a distinctive style he called “minimal realism,” reducing animals and nature scenes to clean geometric forms and flat color fields. The exhibition will include original paintings created for the National Park Service’s poster series — works returning to Cincinnati for the first time since their completion — alongside maquettes and drawings that trace his creative process from sketch to finished print. Three paintings on loan from Everglades National Park’s permanent collection will be included, depicting the South Florida ecosystem Harper documented for the federal government.

“This exhibition celebrates everything we love about Charley Harper, providing fresh insight into his joyful artistry,” said Julie Aronson, PhD, the museum’s curator of American paintings, sculpture, and drawings. Alongside the CAM exhibition, the Taft Museum of Art will simultaneously present Edie McKee Harper: Modernist at Play, running October 17, 2026 through January 24, 2027 — the first solo museum exhibition devoted to Harper’s lifelong creative partner. The CAM exhibition is presented by P&G and funded in part by the Wyeth Foundation for American Art and the America 250-Ohio Commission.

Source: Living Magazines