{{short description|American painter (born 1971)}} {{Infobox person | name = Hilary Harkness | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1971}} | birth_place = Detroit, Michigan, U.S. | education = University of California, Berkeley,<br/> Yale University | occupation = Painter | spouse = Ara Tucker }} '''Hilary Harkness''' (born 1971) is an American artist whose paintings frequently depict surreal worlds inhabited solely by women. She often portrays her female subjects as miniaturized figures set within complexly arranged mechanical or military environments, usually engaged in erotic, violent, or sado-masochistic scenarios.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Selvin |first=Claire |date=2019-07-15 |title=Hilary Harkness Joins P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/ppow-gallery-hilary-harkness-12971/ |access-date=2023-06-20 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bernstein |first=Fred |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-WIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA64 |title=The Advocate |date=2002-04-02 |publisher=Here Publishing |pages=64–65 |language=en |chapter=Feathered Nest}}</ref> Her work has dealt with themes such as power, war and gender while exploring the subject of queerness through historical and fictionalized storytelling.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Soboleva |first=Ksenia |date=2023-10-30 |title=BOMB Magazine {{!}} Hilary Harkness by Ksenia M. Soboleva |url=https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2023/10/30/hilary-harkness-by-ksenia-m-soboleva/ |access-date=2025-07-16 |website=BOMB Magazine |language=en}}</ref> Harkness has work included in the Whitney Museum of American Art collection, and she has had solo shows at the Mary Boone Gallery (now defunct) as well as the P.P.O.W. Gallery in Manhattan.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Heti |first=Sheila |date=2011-09-01 |title=The Process: Hilary Harkness |url=https://www.thebeliever.net/the-process-7/ |access-date=2025-07-16 |website=Believer Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref> She has lectured at institutions such as Colombia University, Yale University, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Herron School of Art at Indiana University Indianapolis.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Fig |first=Joe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cK4zCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA253#v=onepage&q&f=false |title=Inside the Artist's Studio |date=2015-10-06 |publisher=Chronicle Books |isbn=9781616894689 |page=253}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-03-03 |title=Cutting-edge painter to give talk at 2025 LGBTQUIA+ Student Forum at Herron School of Art and Design |url=https://herron.indianapolis.iu.edu/news-events/stories/2025-03-03-harkness-press-release.html |access-date=2025-07-16 |website=Herron School of Art + Design Indiana University Indianapolis}}</ref> Harkness graduated with an undergraduate art degree from University of California, Berkeley and a master's in fine arts from Yale University.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Fig |first=Joe |title=inside the Artist's Studio |date=2015-10-06 |publisher=Chronicle Books |isbn=9781616894689 |pages=120-123}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Hilary Harkness was born in 1971 in Detroit, Michigan.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fIU0AQAAIAAJ |title=Awards in Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking, Photography, and Craft Media |date=2003 |publisher=The Foundation |pages=38 |language=en}}</ref> Her father worked at a paper mill and provided her with access to art materials, including large pieces of paper that Harkness would spread over her family's basement ping-pong table and draw on with crayons.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":8">{{Cite web |last=Galenson |first=David |date=2012-01-09 |title="The Core of Painting Is Story": An Interview With Hilary Harkness |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hilary-harkness_b_1183294 |access-date=2025-07-17 |website=HuffPost |language=en}}</ref> She was encouraged to pursue art at a young age by her crafty parents and upstairs neighbor, an art teacher who would paint watercolors with young Harkness. After finishing her math and science studies early in high school, Harkness was able to spend ample time in her school's art classroom where she had the freedom to work on whatever artist project she wanted. Harkness also utilized this free time to further pursue her musical studies with the violin.<ref>{{Cite podcast |url=https://www.artgrindpodcast.com/podcast/ep-52-hilary-harkness-curiosity-is-flow |title=Hilary Harkness - Curiosity is Flow! |website=Art Grind Podcast |last=Jones |first=Marshall |date=2021-01-21 |access-date=2025-07-17 |first2=Sophia |last2=Kayafas}}</ref>
In 1993, Harkness graduated with a B.A. degree from University of California, Berkeley.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> When Harkness began attending university at UC Berkeley, she was a pre-med student aiming for a biochemistry degree path, however, she ended up switching over last minute to the art program. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, Harkness was strongly encouraged by her professor and fellow artist, Drew Beattie, to continue to study the arts instead of pivoting back to med school. Harkness's interest in learning how to paint took her to Paris in 1993 and, upon her return to the United States, she applied for Yale University where she earned an MFA degree in 1996.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite magazine |last=Johns |first=Merryn |date=October 2013 |title=Bold Strokes: An Out Lesbian Enjoys Acclaim and Controversy |url=https://archive.curvemag.com/s/curve-archive/item/423 |access-date=2025-07-22 |magazine=Curve |pages=52-53 |volume=23 |issue=08}}</ref>
In 2018, she was accepted to participate in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Copyist Program where she first began her exploration of Winslow Homer's "Prisoners from the Front” before creating her own series of 18 small scale works based on the Civil War era painting.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Robinson |first=Jessica |date=2023-10-22 |title=The serious playfulness of Hilary Harkness |url=https://www.bkmag.com/2023/10/22/the-serious-playfulness-of-hilary-harkness/ |access-date=2025-07-29 |website=BKMAG}}</ref> ==Career==
In 1999, Harkness moved to New York City in order to pursue her artistic endeavors to the best of her ability before deciding whether or not to pivot to a different field of work. In the city, Harkness visited galleries door to door with slides of her work. One of the dealers that Harkess was particularly persistent with kept one of her paintings over a weekend. leading to its purchase by Beth Rudin DeWoody from the art dealer's back room in the Bill Maynes Gallery (now defunct). The Bill Maynes Gallery also held Harkness's first solo show.<ref name=":0" />
Harkness was first introduced to the art dealer Mary Boone in 2001 after curator Max Henry placed Harkness in a group show called "View (Five): Westworld" at Mary Boone's Gallery in New York. It wasn't until 2003, after Harkness and a friend crashed a Mary Boone dinner party at Bottino, that Harkness was invited to be a part of Boone's gallery.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /> The Mary Boone Gallery was closed in 2019 after founder Mary Boone was sent to federal prison for tax fraud, leading Harkness to join P.P.O.W Gallery in Manhattan.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Russeth |first=Andrew |date=2019-02-23 |title=Recently Sentenced New York Art Dealer Mary Boone Will Close Her Gallery |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/mary-boone-gallery-will-close-11974/ |access-date=2025-07-29 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Selvin |first=Claire |date=2019-07-15 |title=Hilary Harkness Joins P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/ppow-gallery-hilary-harkness-12971/ |access-date=2025-07-29 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref> At P.P.O.W, Harkness had a solo exhibit in 2023. This show was Harkness's largest showcase as of 2023, and it featured her work from 2007-2023 including the artist's "Arabella Freeman Series", "At Home, At War: Life with Alice and Gertrude" series, and 2018 painting "Experienced People Needed".<ref name=":53">{{Cite web |last=Artdaily |date=2023-10-13 |title=Hilary Harkness's first exhibition with P·P·O·W is now open |url=https://artdaily.cc/news/163099/Hilary-Harkness-s-first-exhibition-with-P--183-P--183-O--183-W-is-now-open- |access-date=2025-07-29 |website=artdaily.cc |language=English}}</ref>
Harkness's work has been featured in a variety of exhibitions at several other notable institutions such as Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain), American Academy of Arts and Letters (New York, NY), Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (Portland, OR) and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield, CT).<ref name=":53" /> In 2015, Harkness was also featured in the FLAG Art Foundation's "Disturbing Innocence" exhibition alongside artists Cindy Sherman and Roy Lichtenstein. Acclaimed artist Eric Fischl was the curator and a featured artist in the "Disturbing Innocence" exhibition.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Disturbing Innocence |url=https://www.flagartfoundation.org/exhibitions/disturbing-innocence-2 |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=The FLAG Art Foundation |language=en-US}}</ref> Harkness herself co-curated "Roy Lichtenstein: Nudes and Interiors" at The FLAG Art Foundation in 2014.<ref name=":53" />
Harkness draws on literature, history, and women’s studies to create detailed technical paintings. Due to the high level of detail found in Harkness's work, she typically produces no more than five paintings a year.<ref>‘JM’,” Hilary Harkness: Artist to Watch,” THE ART ECONOMIST, Volume 1 issue 3, 2011 p. 73.</ref> Her small paintings are usually priced at US$250,000, making her one of the most highly valued artists per square inch, at just age 31.<ref name=":3" />
In her early artwork, Harkness created lesbian utopias that are populated exclusively with women depicted in re-imagined World War II historical scenes inspired by the death of Harkness's WWII veteran grandfather's death in 1999. These early artworks consisted of small drawings and oil paintings that are scientifically detailed creating futuristic industrial worlds filled with sexy doll-like figurines as seen in artworks like wavy "Sinking the Bismark" (2003). The characters within the artworks are not giggling and gossiping rather they are often violent and overtly sexual creating a world where violence and sex are intertwined and have no consequences.<ref>Honigman, Ana Finel, HMS Dystopia: All the real, mean girls, ANOTHER MAGAZINE, Spring/Summer 2008 p. 138.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2001-04-27 |title=ART IN REVIEW; Hilary Harkness -- Mary Carlson (Published 2001) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/arts/art-in-review-hilary-harkness-mary-carlson.html |access-date=2025-07-30 |language=en}}</ref> Harkness's early artwork can be characterized as cross-sections of buildings and battleships with hyper specific scenic details based on historical research with lots of small figures depicted in them.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":8" />
In the mid-2000s, Harkness began to change and evolve her signature style with the goal to create medium-sized paintings larger figures.<ref name=":7">{{Cite news |last=Heti |first=Sheila |date=September 1, 2011 |title=The Process: Hilary Harkness |pages=32 |work=The Believer |url=https://www.thebeliever.net/the-process-7/}}</ref> Harkness's 2007-2016 series, "At Home, At War: Life with Alice and Gertrude", consisted of six painting that explored a different narrative behind the historically tumultuous homosexual relationship between Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein.<ref name=":53" /> Harkness's 2019 - 2023 series on the fictional Arabella Freeman and the imagined Freeman family based on Ara Tucker, Harkness's wife, questioned historical omissions about Civil War era life for Black and queer Americans. The Arabella Freeman Series was inspired by Winslow Homer's "Prisoners from the Front” which Harkness confronted during her time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Copyist Program.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jager |first=David |date=2023-10-24 |title=Hillary Harkness, Reimagining Civil War Paintings, Revels in Uncomfortable Contradictions |url=https://www.nysun.com/article/hillary-harkness-reimagining-civil-war-paintings-revels-in-uncomfortable-contradictions |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=The New York Sun |language=en}}</ref>
==Personal life == Harkness married Ara Tucker, the woman who inspired the artist's "Arabella Freeman" series, in 2015. This was the second marriage for Harkness.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=2015-06-28 |title=Ara Tucker, Hilary Harkness |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/fashion/weddings/ara-tuckerhilary-harkness.html |access-date=2023-06-20 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
== Awards ==
* Willard L. Metcalf Award (2002)<ref name=":6" /> * Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2003)<ref>{{Cite web |title=2003 |url=https://www.louiscomforttiffanyfoundation.org/2003 |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation |language=en-US}}</ref> * Rosenthal Family Foundation Award (2009)<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=All Awards |url=https://www.artsandletters.org//awards |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=American Academy of Arts and Letters |language=en}}</ref> * Henry Clews Award (2017)<ref name=":53" />
== Further readings ==
* "Hilary Harkness: Everything for You", Black Dog Press, 2024
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Harkness, Hilary}} Category:Living people Category:1971 births Category:American lesbian artists Category:Painters from Detroit Category:American queer artists Category:Yale University alumni Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:21st-century American painters Category:21st-century American women painters Category:Yale School of Art alumni