The Self-Taught Visionary of the American Frontier In the annals of nineteenth-century American art, few stories are as compelling or as rugged as that of Chester Harding. A man whose physical presence was as imposing as his artistic legacy, Harding stood well over six feet three inches tall, a towering figure who embodied the very spirit of the expanding American frontier. Born in 1792 in Conway, Massachusetts, his journey to becoming a master of portraiture was not paved with formal academy prestige, but rather with the grit and determination of a self-made man. Before he ever held a fine…