Biografie von Birge Lovell HARRISON (1854-1929)

Birth place: Phila., PA

Death place: Woodstock, NY

Addresses: Paris, France, 1879-82; Germantown, PA; NYC, Woodstock, NY; Plymouth, MA

Profession: Landscape painter, illustrator, teacher, writer

Studied: PAFA; …cole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1876-80; with Carolus-Duran, Cabanel, also in Paris.

Exhibited: PAFA, 1879-83, 1889-91, 1898-1923; NAD, 1881-83, 1889; Paris Salon, 1881, 1882, 1886, 1888; Boston AC, 1883-1905; Paris Expo., 1889 (med.); SNBA, 1893; Columbia Expo., Chicago, 1893 (med.); AIC; Pan.-Am. Expo., Buffalo, 1901 (med.); Soc. Wash. Artists, 1904 (prize); St. Louis Expo., 1904 (med.); AAS Phila., 1907 (gold); Corcoran Gal, 1907-21 (7 times); Dallas, TX, 1912 (med.); Pan.-Pac. Expo., 1915; S. Indp. A., 1917. Awards: Hors Concours, Paris Salon.

Member: ANA, 1902; NA, 1910; SAA, 1882; NIAL; Century Assoc.; NAC; MacD. Club; NYWCC; All. AA; SC; Ends of the Earth Club; Rochester AC; Woodstock AA

Work: AIC; Phila. MA; PAFA; Wilstach Gal., Phila.; Detroit Inst. Art; TMA; CGA; St. Louis AM; St. Paul Inst.; Omaha MFA; Municipal Collection, Spaartaburg, SC, Oakland, CA; Lincoln (NE) Art Assoc.; Herron AI; Brooks Mem. Art Gal., Memphis; Atlanta AA; Calif. Club, Los Angeles; NAC; Butler AI; Lawrence (KS) AM; Dallas AA; Richmond (IN) Art Assoc.; Calumet Club, New York; Chicago Club; Woodstock AA; MusÈe Luxembourg, Paris; museums in Quimper and Marseilles, France

Comments: Around 1882 he began a voyage around the world and produced illustrated stories and articles of his travels for Scribner's magazine. In England he became familiar with the landscape paintings of John Crome and John Constable. Upon his return he lived in California and then on Indian reservations. In the early 1890s he came to NYC, and by 1897 he founded the ASL summer school in Woodstock, NY, which attracted many students, soon turning the town into an artists' colony. Harrison is best known for his atmospheric landscapes, with moonlight bathing a winter snow, or morning mists evoking a stillness. In 1909, he wrote a popular artists" book, Landscape Painting. His influential role was carried on by John F. Carlson (see entry). His brothers were Alexander and Butler Harrison (see entries).

Sources: WW27; Woodstock's Art Heritage, 98-99 (cites birth date of 1855); Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 351; Falk, Exh. Record Series.