Hari Kidd

Hari Kidd (1899-1964)

Hari Kidd, a native of Detroit, attended public schools in El Paso, Texas before moving to Germantown, Pennsylvania, where in 1914 he was attending high school at the outbreak of World War I.  He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and served in England where he reportedly painted the portrait of General Hugh Montague Trenchard, afterward marshal of the Royal Air Force, Viscount Trenchard. 

After the war, Kidd returned to the United States to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.  An Academy scholarship enabled him to study and travel in Europe, including a period on Majorca (1927-29). 

He returned to El Paso in 1933 for health reasons; in the 1940s he moved to Key West, Florida and then in 1964, to Tucson, Arizona.  He died in Tucson the same year. 

A specialist in social realism, he painted on occasion along the Rio Grande.  His portraits, genre works, and city scenes frequently depicted Mexican people and topics. His writings appeared in the El Paso Herald-Post

Kidd was a colossal egoist, sure of himself as a creative artist, unsure of his own definition of his subject matter, a slave to good design, but a modernist of courage and stature. 

Source:

John and Deborah Powers, Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists

 Works

Desert Mood, Morning×

Watercolor
11.5 x 9 inch
29.2 x 22.9 cm