Jerry Harris is an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 abstract

Abstract art

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...

 sculptor, collagist and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. Harris is primarily a constructivist

Constructivism (art)

Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...

 sculptor, working in media such as wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

, stone

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

, bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

, fiberglass

Fiberglass

Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...

, clay

Clay

Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

, metal

Metal

A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...

, mixed media

Mixed media

Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct...

 (found objects), and collage

Collage

A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....

.

After graduating from high school in Pittsburgh, he spent a year in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 with his uncle, professional wrestler and referee Shag Thomas

Shag Thomas

Shag Thomas was an American professional wrestler during the 1950s and 1960s. He was one of the few African-American wrestlers of his day.-Career:...

.
He attended community college in Portland and then transferred to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, and San Francisco State University

San Francisco State University

San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...

.

Harris then studied sculpture under James Lee Hansen, a leading Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

 sculptor who taught at Portland State University

Portland State University

Portland State University is a public state urban university located in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1946, it has the largest overall enrollment of any university in the state of Oregon, including undergraduate and graduate students. It is also the only public university in...

, Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 until his retirement. Subsequently, Harris was accepted in the international sculptor's program at the St Martins School of Art, now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. The school has an outstanding international reputation, and is considered one of the world's leading art and design institutions...

 London, England were his teachers included Sir Anthony Caro

Anthony Caro

Sir Anthony Alfred Caro, OM, CBE is an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using 'found' industrial objects.-Background and early life:...

, Phillip King and Frank Martin. He also did special studies in bronze casting at the former The Central School of Art and Design, London, under Henry Abercrombie.

Harris lived in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

 and Lund, Sweden for many years until the death of his wife, the Swede Britt-Marie Olofsson-Harris in 1996. He befriended many African American visual artists while living in Sweden, such as Herbert Gentry

Herbert Gentry

Herbert Gentry was an African American Expressionist painter lived and worked in Paris, France, , Copenhagen, Denmark , In the Swedish cities of Gothenburg , Stockholm , and Malmo , and in New York City as a permanent resident of the Hotel Chelsea.-The art of Herbert Gentry:Gentry’s...

 and Harvey Cropper. In 1998 Harris returned to the United States and his home town of Pittsburgh. He was elected into The Associated Artists of Pittsburgh

Associated Artists of Pittsburgh

Associated Artists of Pittsburgh is the oldest, and largest nonprofit visual arts membership organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

, the nation's second oldest artists' association, where he felt welcomed by the African American sculptor Thaddeus Mosley

Thaddeus Mosley

Thaddeus G. Mosley is a United States sculptor who works mostly in wood and is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.-Biography:A native of New Castle, Pennsylvania, Mosley enlisted in the U.S. Navy, then graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, where he majored in English and journalism, then...

. Harris later moved to Eugene, Oregon

Eugene, Oregon

Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...

, and currently lives in Chico, California

Chico, California

Chico is the most populous city in Butte County, California, United States. The population was 86,187 at the 2010 census, up from 59,954 at the time of the 2000 census...

.

Since 1988 Harris is a member of the The Swedish Sculptors Association. His sculptures can be found in many private national and international collections, and in the permanent Swedish National Art Collection in Stockholm (Statenskonstrad). He has exhibited throughout Sweden, Europe, and the United States in various galleries and museums.

External links

• Jerry Harris official website
• Article on Jerry Harris, accessed 10/25/09
• Article on Jerry Harris, accessed 1/23/08
• Video clips showing the art of Jerry Harris
• Jerry Harris' African American Art Blog