William Laurel Harris
Encyclopedia
William Laurel Harris was an American
mural
ist, educator, editor and arts organizer.
Harris was member Municipal Art Society
(of which he was president in 1912), the Architectural League of New York
(of which he was vice president), The National Mural Painters Society, and The Fine Arts Federation; he also founded the Art Centre with Katherine Dreier. He painted murals, designed the decorative elements, and continued the work of John LaFarge
at the Church of Saint Paul the Apostle
(also known as the Paulist Fathers Church) on 59th Street and 9th Avenue, New York City. The church was called "an experiment in democracy in American art" by the order's founder, Isaac Thomas Hecker. Other contributors to its decoration include Augustus Saint-Gaudens
, Stanford White
, Frederick William MacMonnies
, and Bela Pratt
.
Harris labored on this project for 15 years, from 1898 to 1913 until fired by the Paulists
in what appears to have been a personal dispute. A disastrous "cleaning" in 1958 removed fourteen of Harris's Saints on side chapel walls, much of Harris's unique ornamentation, and his color treatment. A renovation in the 1990s did not restore any of Harris's decorative painting, but did preserve many of his most important works, including a nativity scene
, the Virgin Mary Enthroned, St. Patrick's and St. Catherine's altars, "The Precious Blood", a carved and painted frieze
featuring lambs, a memorial to deceased Paulists, and a 60 feet (18.3 m), considered by some critics to be one of the most impressive religious paintings in the United States.
Harris was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Henry and Julia (Gillingham) Harris. Orphaned in Brooklyn at age 4, Harris was raised by his grandmother in Windsor, Vermont
. He there met Augustus Saint-Gaudens
, Maxfield Parrish
, Stephen Parrish
; and began his studies with T.W. Dewing.
Harris traveled to Boston and studied with Dewing at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At age 17 he was Dewing's monitor at the Art Students League
in New York City.
The next year Harris studied art at Académie Julian
, Paris with, among others, Paul Gauguin
and at École des Beaux-Arts
where he became massier under Jean-Léon Gérôme. While in Paris Harris pursued his lifelong interest in the applied arts while in Paris, studying, and perhaps working, at the Gobelin Tapestry Works
.
) were the first order in the Roman Catholic Communion founded in the United States. Featuring works by John LaFarge
, Stanford White
, Frederick MacMonnies
, Bela Pratt
, Paulist leader Isaac Hecker
wished the church edifice at 59th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan to be "an experiment in Democracy in American art." In the 1890s, William Laurel Harris began, under Father George Deshon
, decoration of the church. He would work and live with the Paulists until 1913, taking over from John LaFarge not only the mural paintings of Saints and Parables, but the "complete decorative scheme" of the massive edifice.
Along with his work for the Paulist Fathers
Harris's other work included paintings and color schemes in the church of St. Nicholas of the Children in Pasaic, NJ, a Dominican Monastery
in Hunts Point, NY, Catholic Club of New York
, as well as outdoor murals and chapels at Lake George, NY.
Among his educational work was the founding of an "art and trades school" in New York City called the Art Centre. He also trained younger painters as assistants during his projects. Harris himself had been an assistant to Edwin Howland Blashfield during the painting of the dome of Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C. He also wrote editorials for the New York Times and was editor of Good Furniture, a magazine of home decor.
He was president of Municipal Art Society
at the time of the historic 1916 city zoning resolution.
William Laurel Harris died at age 54 at his studio adjacent to the Paulist Fathers retreat at Lake George, New York
, of a stroke
. He is buried in Windsor, Vermont
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
ist, educator, editor and arts organizer.
Harris was member Municipal Art Society
Municipal Art Society
The Municipal Art Society of New York, founded in 1893, is a non-profit membership organization that fights for intelligent urban planning, design and preservation through education, dialogue and advocacy in New York City....
(of which he was president in 1912), the Architectural League of New York
Architectural League of New York
The Architectural League of New York is a non-profit organization "for creative and intellectual work in architecture, urbanism, and related disciplines"....
(of which he was vice president), The National Mural Painters Society, and The Fine Arts Federation; he also founded the Art Centre with Katherine Dreier. He painted murals, designed the decorative elements, and continued the work of John LaFarge
John LaFarge
John La Farge was an American painter, muralist, stained glass window maker, decorator, and writer.-Biography:...
at the Church of Saint Paul the Apostle
Paulist Fathers
The Missionary Society of Saint Paul the Apostle, better known as the Paulist Fathers, is a Roman Catholic religious society for men founded in New York City in 1858 by Servant of God Fr. Isaac Thomas Hecker in collaboration with Fr. George Deshon, Fr. Augustine Hewit, and Fr. Francis A. Baker....
(also known as the Paulist Fathers Church) on 59th Street and 9th Avenue, New York City. The church was called "an experiment in democracy in American art" by the order's founder, Isaac Thomas Hecker. Other contributors to its decoration include Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...
, Stanford White
Stanford White
Stanford White was an American architect and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be found...
, Frederick William MacMonnies
Frederick William MacMonnies
Frederick William MacMonnies was the best known expatriate American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school, as successful and lauded in France as he was in the United States...
, and Bela Pratt
Bela Pratt
Bela Lyon Pratt was an American sculptor.-Life:Pratt was born in Norwich, Connecticut to Sarah and George Pratt, a Yale-educated lawyer. His maternal grandfather, Oramel Whittlesey, was a pianoforte maker and founder in 1835 of the first music school in the country authorized to confer degrees to...
.
Harris labored on this project for 15 years, from 1898 to 1913 until fired by the Paulists
Paulists
Paulists, or Paulines, is the name used for several Roman Catholic Orders and Congregations taken in honour and under the patronage of St. Paul the Hermit....
in what appears to have been a personal dispute. A disastrous "cleaning" in 1958 removed fourteen of Harris's Saints on side chapel walls, much of Harris's unique ornamentation, and his color treatment. A renovation in the 1990s did not restore any of Harris's decorative painting, but did preserve many of his most important works, including a nativity scene
Nativity of Jesus in art
The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century. The artistic depictions of the Nativity or birth of Jesus, celebrated at Christmas, are based on the narratives in the Bible, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and further elaborated by written, oral and...
, the Virgin Mary Enthroned, St. Patrick's and St. Catherine's altars, "The Precious Blood", a carved and painted frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
featuring lambs, a memorial to deceased Paulists, and a 60 feet (18.3 m), considered by some critics to be one of the most impressive religious paintings in the United States.
Boyhood and education
Windsor, Vermont
Windsor is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,756 at the 2000 census.-History:One of the New Hampshire grants, Windsor was chartered as a town on July 6, 1761 by Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth. It was first settled in August 1764 by Captain Steele Smith and...
. He there met Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...
, Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the twentieth century. He is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery.-Life:...
, Stephen Parrish
Stephen Parrish
Stephen Parrish was a painter and an etcher from the United States.-Biography:Parrish was engaged in mercantile pursuits until he was 30, when he applied himself to art, studying for a year with a local teacher. In 1878 he first exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy in Philadelphia, and in 1879 at...
; and began his studies with T.W. Dewing.
Harris traveled to Boston and studied with Dewing at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At age 17 he was Dewing's monitor at the Art Students League
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
in New York City.
The next year Harris studied art at Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
, Paris with, among others, Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
and at École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
where he became massier under Jean-Léon Gérôme. While in Paris Harris pursued his lifelong interest in the applied arts while in Paris, studying, and perhaps working, at the Gobelin Tapestry Works
Gobelins manufactory
The Manufacture des Gobelins is a tapestry factory located in Paris, France, at 42 avenue des Gobelins, near the Les Gobelins métro station in the XIIIe arrondissement...
.
The Paulist fathers
The Paulists (Society of St. Paul the ApostlePaulist Fathers
The Missionary Society of Saint Paul the Apostle, better known as the Paulist Fathers, is a Roman Catholic religious society for men founded in New York City in 1858 by Servant of God Fr. Isaac Thomas Hecker in collaboration with Fr. George Deshon, Fr. Augustine Hewit, and Fr. Francis A. Baker....
) were the first order in the Roman Catholic Communion founded in the United States. Featuring works by John LaFarge
John LaFarge
John La Farge was an American painter, muralist, stained glass window maker, decorator, and writer.-Biography:...
, Stanford White
Stanford White
Stanford White was an American architect and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be found...
, Frederick MacMonnies
Frederick William MacMonnies
Frederick William MacMonnies was the best known expatriate American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school, as successful and lauded in France as he was in the United States...
, Bela Pratt
Bela Pratt
Bela Lyon Pratt was an American sculptor.-Life:Pratt was born in Norwich, Connecticut to Sarah and George Pratt, a Yale-educated lawyer. His maternal grandfather, Oramel Whittlesey, was a pianoforte maker and founder in 1835 of the first music school in the country authorized to confer degrees to...
, Paulist leader Isaac Hecker
Isaac Hecker
Isaac Thomas Hecker was an American Roman Catholic Priest and founder of the Paulist Fathers, the North American religious society of men; he is named a Servant of God by the Catholic Church....
wished the church edifice at 59th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan to be "an experiment in Democracy in American art." In the 1890s, William Laurel Harris began, under Father George Deshon
George Deshon
George Deshon was an American Paulist Father.-Life:...
, decoration of the church. He would work and live with the Paulists until 1913, taking over from John LaFarge not only the mural paintings of Saints and Parables, but the "complete decorative scheme" of the massive edifice.
Other murals
Paulist Fathers
The Missionary Society of Saint Paul the Apostle, better known as the Paulist Fathers, is a Roman Catholic religious society for men founded in New York City in 1858 by Servant of God Fr. Isaac Thomas Hecker in collaboration with Fr. George Deshon, Fr. Augustine Hewit, and Fr. Francis A. Baker....
Harris's other work included paintings and color schemes in the church of St. Nicholas of the Children in Pasaic, NJ, a Dominican Monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
in Hunts Point, NY, Catholic Club of New York
Catholic Club of New York
The Catholic Club of New York was a social Catholic organization. It was founded from the Xavier Alumni Sodality in 1888.- History :The club originated from the Xavier Alumni Sodality, organized in 1863, in connection with the College of St. Francis Xavier. It was directed by Rev. P.F. Dealy, S.J...
, as well as outdoor murals and chapels at Lake George, NY.
Among his educational work was the founding of an "art and trades school" in New York City called the Art Centre. He also trained younger painters as assistants during his projects. Harris himself had been an assistant to Edwin Howland Blashfield during the painting of the dome of Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in Washington, D.C. He also wrote editorials for the New York Times and was editor of Good Furniture, a magazine of home decor.
He was president of Municipal Art Society
Municipal Art Society
The Municipal Art Society of New York, founded in 1893, is a non-profit membership organization that fights for intelligent urban planning, design and preservation through education, dialogue and advocacy in New York City....
at the time of the historic 1916 city zoning resolution.
William Laurel Harris died at age 54 at his studio adjacent to the Paulist Fathers retreat at Lake George, New York
Lake George (town), New York
Lake George is a town in Warren County, New York, USA. The population was 3,578 at the 2000 census. The town is named after the lake, Lake George. Within the town is a village also named Lake George. The town is part of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area.- History :The lake was...
, of a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
. He is buried in Windsor, Vermont
Windsor, Vermont
Windsor is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,756 at the 2000 census.-History:One of the New Hampshire grants, Windsor was chartered as a town on July 6, 1761 by Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth. It was first settled in August 1764 by Captain Steele Smith and...
.
Writer and editor
Harris's first articles on church decoration appear in ecclesiastical publications in 1903. He wrote book reviews for the New York Times, compiled a published catalog of murals in the United States for the Fine Arts Federation and, and for over 11 years was contributing editor for Good Furniture magazine."For out of old fields, as men saithe, / Cometh al this new corn from yere to yere. /
And out of old bookes, in good faithe, / Cometh al this new science that men lere.
—Chaucer.
"The idea thus quaintly expressed as a truism some five hundred years ago is equally true today; it is true not only of old fields and old books, but of our art. Thus it is quite necessary in beginning our article on Church Decoration to turn our thoughts backward to the art of days long past..."
"The spirit of St. Francis is still operative; the struggle against the powers of evil is still going on. In art and in life it is the struggle between honesty and falsehood, between simplicity and ostentation, between true nobility and vulgarity. On the outcome of this struggle hangs the future of American Art." —William Laurel Harris, “St. Francis and his Influence on Church Decoration,” Christian Art, Aug. 1908, p. 203:
"It is by reading the histories of great men that we learn to appreciate the lessons they taught and comprehend the heroic purposes of their lives. The perspective of ages makes clear the exalted characters of artists long since departed. Unimportant facts and accidental details are soon eliminated or forgotten in a forceful expression of some great ideal. With men of our own time and country our opinion is confused and our judgment bewildered by a multiplicity of facts and a conflict of figures. Yet, it is by studying the actions of our contemporaries, and the lives of those men who have immediately preceded us, that we may most easily learn the varying and prodigious forces that have, in our own day, aided in the upbuilding of our American commonwealth.
The lives of great artists are like shining objects floating on troubled water, indicating to us by the direction of their actions the tendency of mighty currents. Of no artist can this be said more truly than of the late John White Alexander, whose untimely death and impressive funeral were recorded in the July issue of Good Furniture." —William Laurel Harris, John White Alexander, His Influence on American Art and Industry, New York City, 1916.