Harold Kerr Eby was born to Canadian Methodist missionaries in Tokyo, Japan, on October 19, 1889. At the age of three his family moved to Vancouver, B. C. and by the time he was twelve, he had lived in Vancouver, Kingston, Toronto and Bracebridge. He worked as a “printer’s devil” on the Bracebridge paper, and at fifteen he took his savings and moved to New York with the dream of becoming an artist.
After graduating from high school in 1907, Eby moved to New York City to study art, first at the Pratt Institute, and later at the Art Students League. He enrolled in art classes at Pratt Institute while working for a lithographic firm earning $4. 00 a week. His pay barely covered his room and drawing supplies. Within a year, life became desperate for the young artist. Starving and feeling defeated, he left in the spring for home in Canada and was employed by a surveying party in Northern Ontario. While in this northern wilderness, Eby regained his dream of becoming an artist, and in his spare time he started to draw his surroundings. By fall he had saved enough money to return to New York. He attended night classes at the Art Students League while working for another lithographic firm.
He spent several more summers surveying in Northern Ontario before he was able to make a living as an illustrator. During this period he formed a number of influential friendships with major artists such as John Henry Twachtman and Childe Hassam and joined a summer artists' colony founded by them at Cos Cob, Connecticut. He supported himself by working as a magazine illustrator and at the American Lithographic Company. Through study and practice, Eby refined both his drawing and printing techniques. In 1917, when the United States entered World War I, Eby joined the U. S. Army. He tried to obtain a commission as an artist, but was assigned first to ambulance duty and later as a sergeant in the 40th Engineers in France. During the war he documented in drawing what he saw and experienced and on his return to New York City, he translated his studies into prints. Drawings of his World War I experiences launched his career. He spent most of WWI on the front line camouflaging the big guns. During his spare time, he would sketch everything from the big guns to the dead soldiers in the field. He sent these drawings home each week. Upon his return from the war, these drawings became his inspiration for his first successful group of etchings. He continued creating a series of war-related prints throughout the 1920's and 30's. Many galleries exhibited his work, but Frederick Keppel, the great print dealer and a relative of Eby, was the exclusive gallery for many of his new prints. With another conflict beginning in the mid-1930's Eby wanted to show the world what war was really like In 1935, he published a book of this prints, called "War". His depictions of combat realities of war are some of the angriest visual arguments against war ever expressed in this country.
When the United States declared war in 1941, Eby tried to enlist, but was turned down because of his age. He instead received his opportunity to participate when Abbott Laboratories developed its combat artist program. Between October 1943 and January 1944, he traveled with Marines in the South Pacific and witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of the war, landing with the invasion force at Tarawa and living three weeks in a foxhole on Bougainville. While on Bougainville he became ill with a tropical disease, one which weakened his health. He returned to the United States unable to regain his full strength. He completed his final drawings for Abbott and two unrelated etchings, but could not complete the etchings that he intended to make from his war pictures. He died in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1946.
In 1930 Eby was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1934. His finished and unfinished drawings, prints and paintings serve as both historical record and primary documentation of the American experience of war in the 20th century.
He was inducted in Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame in 1998 (post mortem).
Associate of the National Academy NA, National Academy of Design, Society of American Etchers, Chicago Society of Etchers, Philadelphia Society of Etchers, National Institute of Arts and Letters.
