Harry Dunn Gallery

Harry Dunn’s work is unlike any other. Harry’s whimsical style and diverse subject matters truly put Harry’s work in category by itself. The Harry Dunn Gallery is located on the third floor of Sunset Hill Fine Arts Gallery in West Chester, PA. Harry’s studio has been re-created just as it was in Harry’s studio on Sharpless Street in West Chester. A truly inviting Gallery that brings many people to visit and many people to smile!

Harry Dunn was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, (1929-1998.) He studied in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Philadelphia College of Art. In New York, Harry studied at the Art Students League.

Wild About Harry

I met Harry Dunn in 1973. I don’t recall the circumstances of our introductions; I only remember how much I laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
That was Harry; crazy, wild, erratic, brilliant. A man who could make one laugh until they were left gasping for breath.
Harry and I could not have been more different. When we met, I was a young Irish Catholic mother of six with practically no credentials in the art community. Harry was well established, and well, Harry was Harry. To this day I don’t know what he saw in me or in my painting, but he must have seen something, because he invited me to share an exhibit with him at the Chester County Art Association. in September, 1973.
The opening was a really swell affair. And here allow me to quote from the Wilmington News Journal art critic, Otto Dekom…..”this is a fairly grand exhibition which attracted the largest crowd I have ever seen at an opening….”
The crowd, of course, was due to Harry and his enormous popularity around town. That he was willing to share this with an unknown was a testimony to his generosity of spirit.
Wherever he lived, the entire surroundings screamed “Harry Dunn lives here”!
His tiny Victorian house in Cape May was homage to America. Everything in sight was red, white and blue. I visited him there one summer afternoon, and we drank lemonade on his front porch. Lord, did we ever laugh! And at my home one November evening, when we were deciding whether to allow two guys we did not know who showed up in a trailer and promised us a show in West Virginia to cart our paintings away, we laughed so hard that I ruined the minute rice.
He was really something, Harry was.
We had another collaborative effort at the Art Center in 1991.  Harry and I never had much in common, we lived different lifestyles, we had different friends, and our paintings could not have been more different.  But one thing we did share, other than the laughter and our commitment to painting, was our ability to recognize amazing art when we saw it.

One of our favorites was Georgia O’Keefe.  Here she is.  The same great painter, as seen through the eyes of two of her admirers.

Kathleen Keane

For more information on the Harry Dunn studio at Sunset Hill Fine Arts Gallery, please contact the gallery by e-mailing us or calling at 610 692 0374.