Honors come Hardie’s way

Hardie continued to paint watercolors, exhibit, do advertising art and illustrations for leading magazines like True, Collier's and Reader's Digest, write and illustrate children's books (he had completed thirteen by the end of his life), give "chalk talks" to schools and libraries, and enjoy life. In 1948, he was honored to be elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design (proposed by Fred Whitaker and Ted Kautsky) and he became a full Academician in 1950. The National Academy had begun accepting watercolorists only four years previously and has kept the number to twenty-five members in the watercolor category. When one sees “N.A.” after an artist’s signature that indicates that they were a National Academician. [This information came in a letter written by Abigail Booth Gerdts, Archivist, National Academy of Design, March 1989.]

In 1951, my father was invited to teach at the University of Oregon, Klamath Falls, for the summer. They'd told us that if we got there by July 4th, I could ride in the parade -- and that was fine. What they didn't mention is that I would be riding in a rodeo as well. I can remember my father's face as I tore into the arena amid all the dust and clamor, the rein of my horse being held by our host, “Bal” Ballentine. Hardie was so stunned that he never snapped one photograph. That summer, Johnny Gannam, a wonderful, well-known illustrator and friend of the family, decided that he would follow us out to Oregon in his new car. My mother says that "he joined Hardie's sketch classes, and the other students loved him. Johnny did beautiful little sketches of the water because he could look at water with reflections and ripples and really analyze it."

Hardie was always volunteering his time and talent to help people, from the local blood bank to the Children's Book Council (his bookmark was given out to 320,000 children) to the American Watercolor Society (in 1953, Hardie, Dong Kingman and other artists went on the television show "Sense and Nonsense" and kept winning for a week, the money going for an AWS prize) to making posters for the Leukemia Society.