MOC Charley Harper- Red and Fed in Lego

[zephyr1934]

MOC Charley Harper- Red and Fed in Lego

I would like to present my take on Charley Harper's Red and Fed in Lego bricks. Harper's original artwork depicts a cardinal in the snow that found a corn cob for a nice meal. The viewer looks on from behind a few dried grasses in the shaded foreground that are still standing from last fall.

 

Charley Harper was a modernist artist, best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters, and book illustrations. He called his style "minimal realism", striving to capture the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements. I find this approach well suited for Lego building. I wanted to replicate the essence of his work- seemingly effortless when, at least in my case, there was so much going on below the surface. The MOC is roughly 9" x 7" (24 cm x 18 cm) and getting the fine details was very tricky at this small scale. The white background is only two studs deep to do all the SNOT work. Take a close look at the thin legs of the cardinal or the stylized corn cob behind the silhouette of the light foliage. It took a long time to find the right combination of parts to capture the thin features of the plants. Look closely and you might spot a fishing rod, an umbrella, hand cuffs and more.

 

While there is a little trickery in the build, it is all strictly Lego parts with no modifications. The trickery only becomes apparent upon close inspection from an angle. Notice how the foliage is built up of several independent mountings on two planes, aligned to create the appearance of a single object. 

 

We have a print of Harper's Red and Fed in our dining room, so I see Harper's work every day. Many years ago, I built my first Lego interpretation of this cardinal and that sparked the inspiration to build the entire picture. It evolved over several years, the idea for the corn came next and while the corn is largely unchanged, ultimately, I had to completely redo the cardinal. As my build was all coming together, my Lego User Group was preparing to set up a display at the Columbus Museum of Art. Although the main display is a minifig diorama, the museum was interested in a few pieces to hang on the walls. I showed the partially completed MOC and they wanted it, but they stipulated that it had to be behind glass. So, I had to abandon the brick built frame in my model and this build has an unusual size to fit the non-Lego frame required for the museum (not shown). For these photos I took it out of that frame and demonstrate two different ways it could be displayed using strictly Lego parts.

If you like this build, please support it on Lego IDEAS and tell your mid-century modern friends about it too

 

 

[Andrijan]

Very cool creation, and definetly a better approach then Legos approach to just create sets of famous art pieces...

 

I think the corncob in the original already has this bricked structure which invites to try building this with lego...

So, good observation

[Lyichir]

Gorgeous! The way you've used the grooves on the tiles/jumpers used for the corn kernels to visually separate them is inspired.

[williejm]

This is gorgeous. Think you’re right that Charley Harper’s simplified style is something that really lends itself to Lego interpretation. Well done!

[Yperio_Bricks]

This is beautiful  Love the bird!

[zephyr1934]

Thank you all for the kind words.

 

On 7/11/2025 at 8:28 AM, Andrijan said:

I think the corncob in the original already has this bricked structure which invites to try building this with lego...

So, good observation

 

On 7/12/2025 at 10:43 AM, Lyichir said:

Gorgeous! The way you've used the grooves on the tiles/jumpers used for the corn kernels to visually separate them is inspired.

Yes indeed, Harper's original work had a nice grid for the kernels of corn and that was what really pushed me to do the whole picture in Lego

 

On 7/12/2025 at 10:53 AM, williejm said:

This is gorgeous. Think you’re right that Charley Harper’s simplified style is something that really lends itself to Lego interpretation. Well done!

This is turning into a habit for me. I'm working on my third MOC based on Harper's work and have a list of several others that might be a good fit. But some of them are so frustratingly "simple" that I'll never be able to get the gentle curves in Lego, at least not anywhere near this scale.

 

12 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

This is beautiful  Love the bird!

It's all Harper and I agree