G. Harvey

Gerald Harvey Jones, better known as G. Harvey, grew up in the Texas Hill Country listening to his father and grandfather tell stories about ranch life, frontier days in Texas, and driving cattle across the Red River.

Early in his career, he began to draw inspiration from that collective memory for paintings that would eventually earn him the reputation as one of America’s most recognized and successful artists. His art is rooted in the scenic beauty of the land he grew up in and the staunch independence of the people who live there.

He says, “My paintings have never been literal representations. They are part first-hand experience, and part dreams generated by those early stories I heard. They are a product of every place I have been, everything I have ever seen and heard.”

G. Harvey graduated from North Texas State University. He taught in Austin, but continued to study art in his spare time, eventually devoting full time to his painting. The year 1965 was a turning point when he won the prestigious New Masters Award in the American Artist Professional League Grand National Exhibition in New York.

It is often said that in viewing a work of art, one is granted a unique look into the thoughts and expressions of values that give meaning to the artist work. Nowhere does this ring truer than the art of G. Harvey.

Though Harvey has had nearly two decades of sell-out shows, an outstanding honor came with a series of one-man shows in Washington, D.C. in 1991. The first was at the National Archives featuring his paintings of the Civil War era, then a selection of paintings of notable Washington landmarks was exhibited at the Treasury Department, culminating in a one-man show of 35 paintings at the Smithsonian Institution during their exhibition of “The All American Horse.”

His work was featured in Gilcrease Museum exhibitions from 1992-1997. In 1987 his alma matter honored him with a Distinguished Alumni Award. One of Harvey’s paintings was featured on the cover of Smithsonian Institution’s 150th anniversary engagement book. He now has four books published, and resides with his family in The Texas Hill Country.