Charles Graham Art

Charles S Graham was born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1852 and his drawings were in nearly every issue of Harper's Magazine from 1880 to 1992. His most favored subject was town views. Before working for Harper's Magazine, Graham was a painter of theater backdrops in Chicago and then hired out as a topographer for the Northern Pacific Railroad survey. He was present when the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1883 and covered the subject of railroads extensively for Harper's Magazine. In the fall of 1884, he traveled to New Orleans with John Durkin and sketched the city as an illustration of the “World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition” that was being held there. In 1886, he returned to New Orleans and from there took an extensive tour of the Southern states. An 1887 illustration by Graham of Yellowstone National Park appeared in Harper's Weekly. Between 1883–96, he was active in San Francisco and was a member of the Bohemian Club and the San Francisco Art Association where he frequently exhibited. At the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, he was the Director of Color and did the same thing the following year in California at the Midwinter Fair. In 1896, he returned to New York but continued to send paintings back to the San Francisco Art Association for exhibitions. After leaving Harper's Magazine, Graham worked as a freelance illustrator and after 1900, he became an oil painter. He passed away in 1911.