Biography

 

1914, January 10.  Born in Reading, Pennsylvania to William J. and Jean Julia (Hatfield) Hartgen.

1925. Receives first art award at age 11, an airplane ride over the city of Reading, PA.

1929. First identified art work appears in junior high school yearbook, The Northeaster, Northeast Junior High School, Reading, Pa.

1932. Graduated from Reading Senior High School, mentored by art  teacher, Italo de Francesco.

1934. Enrolls in University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, on Senatorial Scholarship, majoring in architecture.

1934-1942. Beaux Arts Institute of Design, New York,  international competitions; special courses, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; interior design, and School of Industrial Arts, Philadelphia.

1937-1939. Curator, Anna Hyatt Huntington sculptures, nationwide traveling exhibit. Now at Brookgreen Gardens, Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Travels on Huntington study grant to observe museums and collections of  Europe.

1938-1942. Curator, Cultural Olympics, Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania.

1940, July 6. Marries Frances Caroline Lubanda, Reading, PA.

1941. Graduates, University of Pennsylvania, Bachelors of Fine Arts.

1942-1945. United States Army, World War II, Cameofleur engineer, 603^rd Engineer Camouflage Corps.

1943. Graduates, University of Pennsylvania, Masters of Fine Arts.

1944. Soldier Art Exhibition, Baltimore, Md, Honorable Mention; First solo exhibit, Vagabond Theatre, Baltimore, Md.

1944, Sept. 30. Twin sons, David Thomas Hartgen, Stephen Anthony Hartgen, born, Baltimore, Md.

1945. First Prize, Soldier Art, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.

1946-1948. Instructor, University of Maine, Orono, Me., Department of Art.

1947. Major New York show, Binet Gallery.

1948-1962. Assistant Professor and Associate Professor, University of Maine, Department of Art.

1950. Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, University of Maine; Honorable Mention, Audubon Artists, New York.

1949-1950. With Cooper Milliken of Eaton Tarbell & Associates, architects, Bangor, designs and builds modernistic home on Forest Avenue in Orono, Me.

1952-1955. Trustee, Haystack Mountain School of  Art, Deer Isle, Me.

1955.  Elected, Audubon Artists Society, New York;  Adds painting studio to home at 109 Forest Avenue, Orono; Harry Greaver joins UMO Art Department as second faculty member, with Hartgen.

1955. Commissioned to create posters and graphic arts, UNESCO, National Theater Arts, Washington, D.C.

1959. Arts and Sciences Foundation sponsorship for solo exhibit, Doll and Richards Gallery, Boston, Ma.; Works chosen for end papers, Readers Digest Books, Pleasantville, N.Y.

1961. Show with the Centennial Exhibition of the Association of Land Grant Colleges & Universities, Kansas City, Mo.

1962.  Named Professor of Art; named John Homer Huddilston Endowed Chair; director, University of Maine Museum of Art; Chairman, Department of Art; Major solo exhibit, Chase Gallery, New York.; Organizes University of Maine Patrons of  the Arts group.

1963. Maine State Governor’s Art Award.

1964. Appointed to Governor’s Council of Arts & Culture, Augusta, Me.

1965. Named Distinguished Professor, University of Maine; Creative Aquarelle Award, Audubon Artists.

1966. Appointed to the Maine State Commission on the Arts and Humanities; Elected, American Watercolor Society, New York; Invited to show with the “200 Years of Watercolor Painting in America” exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

1967. Selection of works chosen for American Artists Group cards, New York; Awarded the Arts & Humanities Governor’s Art Award, Augusta, Me.

1968. Works chosen for U.S. State Department, Art in the Embassies Exhibition, Washington, D.C.

1969-1970. One-year sabbatical trip with Mrs. Hartgen to Europe to study collections, museums, cathedrals.

1972. Awarded University of Maine Alumni Association’s Black Bear Award.

1974. Silver Medal, Creative Aquarelle Award, Audubon Artists Society.

1975. Maine Bicentennial Medal Award, Franklin Mint, Washington, D.C.

1982, Dec. 31. Retires from the University of Maine, Department of Art.

1983-1984. Travels throughout United States, sketching and painting.

1987, Dec. 19. Awarded Honorary Ph.D. of  Fine Arts, University of Maine, Orono.

1987. Department of Art, Art History Travel Award named for Vincent Hartgen.

1989.“Founder and Futurist, Vincent A. Hartgen at 75” Exhibit, University of Maine, Orono.

1994. “Hartgen at 80” Exhibit, University of Maine, Orono.

1997. Patrons of the Arts, University of Maine. Creation of the Vincent  A. Hartgen Award to honor individuals who “have distinguished themselves in the Arts Community of the University of Maine.”

2000. Art Etcetera Gallery Exhibit, Orono, new drawings.

2002, October-November. Aucociso Gallery Exhibit, Portland, Maine, two-person show with Michael Lewis, includes new drawings.

2002, Nov. 27. Dies, Bangor, Maine. Age 88.  State of Maine, “Joint Resolution in Memoriam” by the 121^st Legislature, State of Maine.

2003. Hartgen family gives Hartgen paintings, sketches, drawings to the University of Maine Art Department as the Vincent A. Hartgen Teaching Collection.

2004. Hartgen family gives Hebron Academy part of Professor Hartgen’s legacy collection, 160 art books, reference materials, and two paintings.

2004. Named one of the University of Maine’s “Professors of  the Decades,” 1964-1974, by the University of Maine Foundation.

2004-2006. Lord Hall Department of Art renovation with “Vincent A, Hartgen Lecture Hall;” “Hartgen at Ninety” Retrospective Exhibit, University of Maine.

2006. Frances Hartgen publishes A Maine Passage, a memoir of their life in Orono.

2006, Nov. 11. Frances Hartgen dies, Orono, Me., Age 93.

2007. Vincent Hartgen included in Campaign Maine brochures for University of Maine $150 million Capital Campaign; Art Department Legacy Campaign launched with offering for sale of Hartgen paintings from the Vincent Hartgen Teaching Collection.

2007, October-November. “A Legacy of Collecting: The Vincent Hartgen Years,” at UMMA gallery, Bangor, honoring Hartgen’s beginning of the UMMA Art Collection, 1946-1982, and including a showing of several of Hartgen’s work from the UMMA collection, including “Analytique…Roman Forum,” (1971) and “Variations on a Birch Bark Theme,” (1997).

2008. Carl Little, David and Stephen Hartgen publish Vincent Andrew Hartgen: His Art and Legacy, designed by Tara Beck.

2011, August 6-December 10. “Painting Schoodic.” Littlefield Gallery Exhibits, Maine + Design Magazine and Dirigo Pines Retirement Community. Proceeds benefit University of Maine Department of Art.

2012. Hartgen’s granddaughter, Tiffany Paisley, begins work on the VAH project, a senior honors thesis in English writing at the University of Colorado, Denver.

2012. The University of Maine Department of Art continues its expansion with its Stewart Hall renovations, “a state-of-the-art visual arts complex featuring light, open, airy, purpose built studios for Painting, Drawing, 3-D Design, Photography and Printmaking…conjoined with the NMIRDC (New Media Innovation, Research, Development and Commercialization Center) featuring prototype lab, video-editing facilities, recording studio, high-end digital classrooms and two large installation and black box spaces…” Sales proceeds from the Vincent Hartgen teaching collection benefit this expansion.

>A Legacy

>Founder and Futurist

*Compiled from Founder and Futurist, Vincent Hartgen at 75 and Vincent Andrew Hartgen: His Art and Legacy.