A few times a year people contact me about the art of Harry Day, mostly created before I was born or when I was a young child. There is a distinct possibility that we were distantly related as my father's father was a Day of Massachusetts since 1640. The Harry Day that these inquiries are seeking is described below.
Harry Ivan Day , Jr. passed on in Florida on Sunday , Feb.18 , 2001.He was born Nov.17 , 1912 in Haverhill , Mass. to Harry Ivan Day , Sr. and Miriam Lewis Shute Day. He was a descendant of Joseph Lewis , one of Boothbay's first settlers. A renowned photographer and artist , Mr. Day owned the Harry Day Gallery on Union Street in Boothbay Harbor for 45 years. He started coming to East Boothbay , where he set up a studio , in 1949 as a summer resident and moved to Boothbay Harbor full-time in 1991. He had lived for many years in New York City , Forest Hills , N.Y. , Westport , Conn. , Essex , Conn. , and Jackson , N.H. , where he had a year-round art gallery from 1969 to 1991. He recently retired to Bradenton , Florida where he had been a winter resident.
Mr. Day was most recently recognized as a contemporary painter but previously had been a well known photographer. He started drawing at the age of six when a draftsman friend gave him paper , pencil and pastels and told him to start drawing. Soon after he began applying his love of color and space to landscapes and seascapes in all types of media. He learned photography from his father , an engineer at MIT who had invented a camera. After attending Staunton Military Academy and Chauncy Hall , Mr. Day left his beginning engineering career for Massachusetts School of Art. Upon moving to New York City during the Depression , he returned to photography and entered the New York Institute of Photography. His photography career blossomed at Van Cleef and Arpels Jewelry where he became the sole photographer for eight years....Day photographed many celebrities , including Lilli Pons , the Duke and Duchess of Windsor , Mrs. William Paley , Marlene Dietrich , and Mr. Guggenheim....In the 1950s Day was contracted by David Dean Laboratories to convert LIFE magazine's photographs of the world's 50 greatest masterpieces to life-sized transparencies , as_well_as the entire Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo's masterpiece , done in one-quarter scale.This world display , called Illumination from Life , was featured at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. At that time , some of Day's murals , called Colorama , could be seen in New York's Grand Central Station , Saks Fifth Avenue and other places.The Eastman Kodak Company invited him to lecture on a unique process he had invented.He was the first American photographer to have photographs accepted in an exhibit of England's Royal Photographic Society , of which he became a Fellow and received the F.R.P.S. designation....The Christian Science Monitor commissioned Day to do a series of pictures featuring Children of the World as covers for its magazine section.He was considered one of the top ten exhibitors of photography in the world.Mr. Day courted his wife Jannis, literally, on the Forest Hills tennis courts where they were both at the top of their games as amateur members.They were married in 1940.
Harry Ivan Day , Jr. passed on in Florida on Sunday , Feb.18 , 2001.He was born Nov.17 , 1912 in Haverhill , Mass. to Harry Ivan Day , Sr. and Miriam Lewis Shute Day. He was a descendant of Joseph Lewis , one of Boothbay's first settlers. A renowned photographer and artist , Mr. Day owned the Harry Day Gallery on Union Street in Boothbay Harbor for 45 years. He started coming to East Boothbay , where he set up a studio , in 1949 as a summer resident and moved to Boothbay Harbor full-time in 1991. He had lived for many years in New York City , Forest Hills , N.Y. , Westport , Conn. , Essex , Conn. , and Jackson , N.H. , where he had a year-round art gallery from 1969 to 1991. He recently retired to Bradenton , Florida where he had been a winter resident.
Mr. Day was most recently recognized as a contemporary painter but previously had been a well known photographer. He started drawing at the age of six when a draftsman friend gave him paper , pencil and pastels and told him to start drawing. Soon after he began applying his love of color and space to landscapes and seascapes in all types of media. He learned photography from his father , an engineer at MIT who had invented a camera. After attending Staunton Military Academy and Chauncy Hall , Mr. Day left his beginning engineering career for Massachusetts School of Art. Upon moving to New York City during the Depression , he returned to photography and entered the New York Institute of Photography. His photography career blossomed at Van Cleef and Arpels Jewelry where he became the sole photographer for eight years....Day photographed many celebrities , including Lilli Pons , the Duke and Duchess of Windsor , Mrs. William Paley , Marlene Dietrich , and Mr. Guggenheim....In the 1950s Day was contracted by David Dean Laboratories to convert LIFE magazine's photographs of the world's 50 greatest masterpieces to life-sized transparencies , as_well_as the entire Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo's masterpiece , done in one-quarter scale.This world display , called Illumination from Life , was featured at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. At that time , some of Day's murals , called Colorama , could be seen in New York's Grand Central Station , Saks Fifth Avenue and other places.The Eastman Kodak Company invited him to lecture on a unique process he had invented.He was the first American photographer to have photographs accepted in an exhibit of England's Royal Photographic Society , of which he became a Fellow and received the F.R.P.S. designation....The Christian Science Monitor commissioned Day to do a series of pictures featuring Children of the World as covers for its magazine section.He was considered one of the top ten exhibitors of photography in the world.Mr. Day courted his wife Jannis, literally, on the Forest Hills tennis courts where they were both at the top of their games as amateur members.They were married in 1940.
