Our Past Is Present September 27, 2017

September 27, 2017

            This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.

            The September 3, 1921 edition of the “Junction City Daily Union” told how the son of Mr. and Mrs. John Harman had recently had one of his watercolor paintings printed in the “World Magazine.”  The picture showed a steeplejack view of New York’s Lower Broadway.  The article accompanying the picture stated “Truth is stranger than cubism when it comes to seeing and depicting the unbelievable skyscraper of Lower Manhattan.”  The perspective from which the picture was made was one that few artists would attempt.

            Bertram Hartman was born in Junction City in 1882.  He graduated from Junction City High School with 28 others in 1900.  The 1900 Year Book published an appropriate prophecy for each graduate and beside Bertram’s name was written “An artist who may produce excelled designs, but they will avail little, unless the taste of the public is sufficiently cultivated to appreciate them.”  Harman painted three murals for the old Bartell Hotel dining room in 1910 and it is these for which he is most remembered by area residents.  There were also four oil landscape paintings of Geary County that hung in the George Smith Library, which was located at the corner of Seventh and Washington Streets.  These landscape paintings were donated to our Museum in 1984.

            Bertram went on to study abroad and returned to live in New York where he opened a

studio.  Just prior to his death in 1960, he wrote letters to the head librarian of the George Smith Library.  These letters also contained sketches in crayon and ink.  A time capsule buried by the graduating class of 1900 was opened in 2000 and one of Harman’s sketches was found in the capsule. That’s today’s story on “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.