Harry Anderson was an American illustrator and a member of the Illustrator's Hall of Fame. A devout Seventh-day Adventist artist, he is best known for Christian-themed illustrations he painted for the Adventist church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was also a popular illustrator of short stories in American weekly magazines during the 1930s and early 1940s.
In 1941 he went to work for Haddon Sundblom's studio. In 1944, Anderson and his wife joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church and, by request, did a painting of Jesus. Anderson's painting, "What Happened to Your Hand?", depicting Jesus with modern-day children was decried as blasphemous by some adults, but was eventually printed in the publishing program.
From that time on, he split his time between commercial illustrations and religious ones. He did the religious-themed pieces for near minimum wage. In the 1960s, Anderson did work for Exxon Oil (then Esso). In the mid-1960s, he was commissioned to create a number of paintings for the LDS Church. He painted a large oil mural of Jesus ordaining his apostles for the church's pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Following this, he did at least two dozen more paintings for the LDS Church; many of these are displayed in the Temple Square Visitors Center and the lobby of the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City, Utah, and at other prominent church locations. Re-prints of some of Anderson's paintings can be found hanging in nearly every LDS Church meetinghouse and temple in the world. The paintings are also still widely used by the church for many of its printed and online materials. In his 70s and 80s, Anderson made western-themed paintings for several fine art galleries, a pursuit shared by several well-known retired American illustrators of that era.
Syracuse School of Art
Male
Artist, Illustrator
Anderson was featured in a 1956 issue of American Artist and received awards from several associations throughout his career. He was awarded the prestigious New York Art Directors Club. In 1994, he was inducted into the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame, joining such notable illustrators as Norman Rockwell, James Montgomery Flagg, and N. C. Wyeth.