Rodney Dean Harder is an American visual artist and educator whose career has connected Fresno and New York. His paintings and mixed-media works have been exhibited in the United States and internationally, while his teaching and curatorial work contributed to the development of visual-art programs and exhibitions.
Background
Rodney Dean Harder was born on April 24, 1950, in Ogallala, Nebraska, to Victor Christian Harder and Margaret Harder. He lived in Fresno, California, from 1963 to 1984, a period during which he completed his undergraduate and graduate education and began exhibiting and teaching.
Harder's family background included connections to the Mennonite Brethren community in central California. His mother, Margaret, died in Fresno in 1988 and was buried at Reedley Cemetery. By 1984 Harder had relocated to New York City, where he continued his artistic practice and established a long-term teaching career.
Education
Harder received a bachelor's degree from Fresno Pacific College in 1973 and a Master of Arts in fine art from California State University, Fresno, in 1975. Fresno Pacific developed from a Bible institute into a college during the period of Harder's studies and later became Fresno Pacific University, while California State University, Fresno was part of the California State University system serving the rapidly expanding San Joaquin Valley.
His graduate education coincided with the growth of contemporary art practices in California, including abstraction, process-based work, installation, and experimentation with nontraditional materials. His later work and teaching encompassed painting, watercolor, oil, process art, performance, installation, folded-paper construction, and constructions using materials such as marble and cardboard.
Career
Harder began his professional career in the Fresno area, teaching art at Fresno Pacific College from 1974 to 1983. He also taught at the Fresno Art Museum from 1980 to 1983 and at California State University, Fresno, from 1981 to 1983. Fresno Pacific's visual-art program was still developing during these years, and later institutional accounts identify Harder as an important figure in the growth of the university's arts culture.
After moving to New York City in 1984, Harder taught art and served as an art coordinator and instructor at the Collegiate School. Founded in 1628, Collegiate is one of the oldest independent schools in the United States and has maintained a broad liberal-arts educational tradition. Harder also taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1986.
His artistic practice has moved between landscapes, abstraction, process art, performance, installation, folded-paper construction, and marble and cardboard constructions. His small abstract paintings often use recycled paint, boards, canvas, and, at times, gold leaf; the series shown in the 2015 exhibition World addressed humanity, heritage, and the human spirit through layered surfaces and forms suggesting abstracted language.
Harder's exhibitions have included solo presentations at the Fresno Art Museum, Gallery 25 in Fresno, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Art in General in New York, Gallery Jeju in South Korea, and Palazzo Montefano in Bologna. He co-curated The Addicott Collection with Mark Rodriguez at the Fresno Art Museum in 2013 and co-curated Fresh Flowers with Dana Frankfort at Boston University's Sherman Gallery in 2011. His work is represented in collections associated with institutions including the Fresno Art Museum, CitiBank, IBM, Canadian Imperial Bank, Mount Sinai Hospital, and other corporate and private collections.
Achievements
Harder's paintings and mixed-media works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and internationally, including exhibitions in Italy, South Korea, Belgium, and Scotland.
His artistic practice has encompassed landscape and abstract painting, process art, performance, installation, folded-paper construction, and constructions using marble and cardboard.
He co-curated The Addicott Collection at the Fresno Art Museum in 2013 and Fresh Flowers at Boston University's Sherman Gallery in 2011.
His teaching at Fresno Pacific College and later recognition by the institution contributed to the documented development of visual-art education at Fresno Pacific.
Views
Harder's artistic practice treats visual form as a means of engaging questions of humanity, heritage, cultural memory, and the human spirit. His use of recycled materials, layered surfaces, and abstracted forms places emphasis on process, material transformation, and the viewer's personal encounter with the work.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Chris Janzen, an art professor at Fresno Pacific University, described Harder as a unique and important figure in the development of the institution's visual-art program, noting that he connected church traditions with the cutting-edge art world of the 1970s.
Connections
Harder is the son of Victor Christian Harder and Margaret Harder. His mother was identified as a homemaker in a Fresno obituary and was associated with Butler Mennonite Brethren Church. The family was connected with the central California region where Harder spent his formative years.
Father:
Victor Christian Harder
Mother:
Margaret Harder
She was identified as Rodney Harder's mother and lived in the Fresno area, where she died in 1988.
References
Rodney Harder — council_st artist profile
Documents Harder's education, residence in Fresno and New York, teaching at Collegiate School, grants and fellowships, exhibitions, curatorial projects, and collections.
Rodney Harder: world — Fresno Art Museum
Documents the Fresno Art Museum exhibition of Harder's paintings, his artistic materials and themes, his education, residence in New York, and international exhibition history.
The Arts Grow with Fresno Pacific
Describes Harder's role as a Fresno Pacific graduate and former professor and his contribution to the development of visual-art education at the institution.
