Jean Miller Harding

Contemporary Romantic Realism

Jean Miller Harding is a Canadian artist born into an artistic family in the Niagara region of Ontario. Besides the love of art, there was an intense interest in the form and functioning of the human body. After receiving an undergraduate degree in science and fine art history, specializing in the European masters of the Renaissance, she entered the faculty of Medicine programme in Medical Art at the University of Toronto, graduating with honours and receiving the highest award for her artwork.

Graduation was followed by a 15-year career as a respected freelance medical illustrator whose talents were sought throughout North America. During that time, Jean Illustrated over 400 magazine covers, worked with National Geographic on a hard covered book called “The Incredible Machine” and helped produce many advertising campaigns for the pharmaceutical industry, some of which have won international awards.

While working as a commercial illustrator, Jean studied portraiture with John Howard Sanden at the Portrait Institute in New York City and classical realism in Florence Italy with Maestro Michael John Angel who was a student of Pietro Annagoni. In the early 1990’s , she received her first commission to paint a portrait and a successful career as a portrait artist was launched. In 1994, Jean was invited to participate in an art show in Jakarta, Indonesia, sponsored by the Canadian Embassy, sparking her work in figurative and still life and landscape painting.

For 20 years, Jean and her artist husband , had studios in Canada and the south of France and exhibited in Canada, USA, France and England.