Donald R. Harter

Donald Harter is a Western New York watercolorist who was born in Buffalo in 1932. He received his B.S. at the University of Buffalo and his M.A. at Columbia University. He established the Department of Art at Niagara County Community College in 1964, and named coordinator of the college’s fine arts department in 1967, and department chairman in 1969. He studied with Charles Burchfield and exhibited at the Albright Knox for the Western New York Annual in 1953, 1954, 1956, 1959, 1966, and 1967.  He also exhibited at the Chautauqua National in 1955 and 1967, and was part of the Niagara Frontier Exhibition in 1980, along with many other small exhibitions scattered throughout the county.  Harter was interested in emotions and textures, and thought his work to be a result of an emotional response. Water color was appealing to him, especially the surface quality, because it produced water marks and variation resulting in subtleties and textures.