An economics major at Brandeis University who has worked on Wall Street for 50 years, Harvey did not come to this with an art background. He discovered Jacob Lawrence as part of a quest to better understand his own family history. All his life he was told about this “famous artist” in the family. Only later, did he discover that the artist, William Gropper, was not just famous in his family, but was one of the leading radical artists in America in the 1930s and 1940s.

A brilliant cartoonist, painter and muralist, Gropper was a first cousin of Harvey’s mother. He was also one of two artists called by Sen. Joseph McCarthy to testify before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953. His refusal to “name names” left him blacklisted for eight years.

“We were immediately moved by what we saw, a more inclusive story about those involved in creating a better society that included women, African Americans, Native Americans and immigrants,” he says. They also learned that some of the paintings were in private hands and thought they might be able to add one to their Gropper collection, which focused on civil rights, the dignity of labor and the immigrant experience in America.

About five years later, the couple met Elizabeth Hutton Turner, an esteemed Lawrence scholar who is now an art professor at the University of Virginia. “She encouraged us to continue to collect with greater purpose than to have art on our walls for just friends and family to come and see. We began to understand this was part of something bigger,” says Harvey. “This exhibition never would have gotten off the ground without her vision from the start.” Turner is co-curator of the exhibition with Austen Barron Bailly, PEM’s former American art curator.

"It was timely 65 years ago, and it will be timely 65 years from now,” he says. “There will always be challenges in our country, and there will always be the need for discussion, between young and old, and between people of all political persuasions."

The exhibition is made possible through generous lenders, the dedicated curatorial team, and, as Harvey acknowledged, “hundreds and hundreds of named and unnamed individuals,” who have supported this ambitious project. But none of this likely would have happened if Harvey did not attend a social mixer some 50 years ago in New York where he met a nice woman, also named Harvey. At first, he thought he heard her wrong. Another Harvey? Yes, Harvey-Ann explained, she was named after her grandmother, Chava being the Hebrew name for Eve. He proceeded to ask her out for coffee.

For Harvey, who lost his wife six years ago, the exhibition is an extension of all that Harvey-Ann stood for in her life.