Frederick Harer (1879-1946) and Ben Badura (1896-1986)

This is the story of two artists who found their greatest success not from oils, watercolors, or even ink. These two men literally carved out their niche in the artist’s landscape by pushing the boundaries of frame making. Oddly enough their success and influence as frame makers came almost reluctantly and by accident.

Frederick Harer was born in 1879, in Blossburg, Pennsylvania. Harer’s father was a successful cabinet maker and taught Frederick the secrets of the trade. Harer was a free spirit and traveled extensively in the British West Indies and Spain. Not one to stay in hotels or resort areas, Harer would use native guides and travel to remote untapped areas, immersing himself in the local cultures. He used the arts and crafts and local styles from his travels as his inspiration and main influence.
Harer returned to Pennsylvania to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under famous instructors William Merritt Chase and Thomas Anshutz. It was at the Academy that Harer stumbled upon what would become the bulk of his life’s work. Using his father’s wood working tools Harer had taken to making original frames and framing his own paintings and the other artists at the academy took notice. Soon Harer was supporting himself entirely on frame making. Beyond his father’s tools he created specialized carving equipment and integrated them into his hand carved frames. His gilding was meticulous and of the highest quality, the product of classic training and ‘secret’ techniques he developed. His pride in his work translated in the simple etched signature he would carve into the back of each frame, treating them as works of art.

Harer’s work became extremely popular not only with Bucks County painters, but also with painters in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Connecticut. Eventually the demand was too much for one man to handle and so Harer took on an apprentice named Bernard Badura. Eventually known as Ben, Bernard Badura was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1896. Badura loved to paint and wanted to be an artist very early on in his life. After returning from WWI he enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia and was a student of Daniel Garber. Badura had no initial interest in frame making, but accepted the apprenticeship under Harer to make ends meet. He demonstrated considerable skill at carving and gilding, surprising some of the artists when they saw ‘Badura’ etched on the back of their frame and not ‘Harer’.

In 1946 Frederick Harer died, leaving his sacred tools and sketchbooks to Badura. He entrusted them to Ben as he was the only frame maker worthy of these treasured items. For the next forty years Badura continued in the Harer tradition and also introduced his own designs that became wildly popular amongst the artists who commissioned the frames. Badura, whose heart truly lied in oil and canvas, never took on more commissions than he needed to pay his bills, allowing himself as much time as possible to paint. He never deviated from his original price of $8 per foot even as inflation took hold and the artists he worked for begged him to increase his price.