Introduction

George Harvan is a major American photographer of the second half of the twentieth century. He is generally acknowledged to be the premier documentary photographer of the last generation of underground miners in the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania. He explored just as perceptively other scenes and peoples in a career spanning more than half a century.

There is good reason for mounting the online retrospective assembled here. George Harvan currently enjoys an enviable local reputation. In the past twenty years his work has been exhibited frequently in Pennsylvania, and numerous photographs have appeared in general and specialized magazines. His mining photographs have enjoyed notable and well-deserved attention—the Lehigh University Art Gallery in South Bethlehem is home to a major collection of his mining photographs. However, there has never been a major exhibition presenting the entire range of his photographic work over his fifty-year career. His photographs of the Amish and Pennsylvania country auctions have typically appeared singly. More than half of the almost 280 photographs assembled for this online exhibition have never been published or appeared in a public showing.

One can only fully evaluate George Harvan's work by placing individual photos and groups of photos within the broader context of his entire body of work. We hope that this major exhibition of his work, coupled with his oral history, and our historical essay, will introduce George Harvan and his work to a broader audience and contribute to a growing awareness of his significance in the evolving history of documentary photography in the United States.