James C. Harrison (November 27, 1925 – November 4, 1990) was a

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

, Michigan artist based in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York. His work is complex, layered and full of Jungian, religious and mystical references used to relay his internal battles and demons. Harrison drew inspiration from mythology, psychiatry, poetry, music, philosophy and artists of the past. His ever-evolving style - often equated to

Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Twombly is said to have influenced you ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

and other contemporaries - always maintained a cutting-edge quality that was anchored in his own deep philosophical tendencies.

Life and education

Born in Detroit, Michigan on November 27, 1925, James Carter Harrison (after Howard Carter the British archaeologist who excavated King Tut's tomb) Harrison attended

Cass Technical High School Cass Technical High School (simply referred to as Cass Tech) is a public high school in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, United States.

in Detroit and graduated in 1943 with a degree in commercial art. He went on to attend both the

Cranbrook Academy of Art The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cr ...

(1944) and

Olivet College Olivet College is a private Christian liberal arts college located in Olivet, Michigan. The college is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. It was founded in 1844 by missionaries from Oberlin College, and it followed Oberlin in becom ...

(1946) for only a single term each, before realizing that a traditional educational setting was not agreeable with him. Thus, he became largely a self-taught artist. Harrison was awarded and sponsored by Professor

Wallace Fowlie Wallace Fowlie (1908–1998) was an American writer and professor of literature. He was the James B. Duke Professor of French Literature at Duke University where he taught from 1964 to the end of his career. Although he published more than twenty ...

of Duke University to attend a three-month residency in 1948 at

Yaddo Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

(artist colony) in Saratoga Springs, New York.LedisFlam, Inc. James Harrison, exhibition catalog, 1989, LedisFlam Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. In 1950, Harrison moved to New York and worked as a color mixer for a textile manufacturer to support himself, still with aspirations of becoming a recognized artist. While in New York, Harrison surrounded himself with a group of friends that included

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

and photographers Doug Quackenbush and

Larry Clark Lawrence Donald Clark (born January 19, 1943) is an American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is best known for his controversial teen film ''Kids'' (1995) and his photography book ''Tulsa'' (1971). His work focuses prim ...

. He drew inspiration from Jazz, a passion that ignited in him since his beginnings in Detroit, the philosophies of

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

and became more and more consumed by an addiction to drugs and alcohol. From the late 1950s throughout the 1970s he was featured in numerous group exhibitions, but it wasn't until the 1980s that he finally gained recognition of his own right. In 1983, he had his first solo exhibition at A Place Apart Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, and in 1987, the LedisFlam Gallery presented his unaided exhibition, "Forty Year Retrospective". After a long-standing battle with alcohol and drug abuse, Harrison died from liver failure on November 4, 1990 in Brooklyn, New York.

Career

Harrison was prolific in numerous mediums including prints, mixed media, assemblage and paintings. While his early work has been compared to both

and

, his later pieces show a distinct change in inspiration. Even though Harrison's work evolved dramatically during the course of his career, it consistently demonstrated his fierce need for self-expression; art served as both a physical and emotional catharsis for Harrison. Early on in his career, Harrison befriended Twombly. Trinkett Clark of the Chrysler Museum writes "the artists exchanged ideas and stylistic tendencies; however, Harrison had stronger connections to the art and goals of

Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo to see his family and ...

.Clark, Trinkett. Parameters: James Harrison, exhibition pamphlet. 1992, The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA During the 1950s Harrison work reflected what he termed formal "arrangements" that examine the potential of a monochromatic palette as they suggest an elusive being." The 1960s were a personal crisis for Harrison. He could not support himself with his art and retreated, like many did, into a private netherworld governed by alcohol and drugs. These substances allowed him to explore his subconscious. His paintings from these years document a voyage into his struggling, tormented soul, an uncensored excursion into his agonizing nightmares. Right Side Left Side

In 1966, Harrison's ongoing battle with drugs and alcohol forced him to be hospitalized. It was after this period that he experienced a Renaissance of sorts which, thus, greatly affected his form of artistic expression. Drawing became the predominant focus for his artwork, or what he himself called "paint-drawing". His work maintained both a graphic and European quality, yet his style was constantly progressing, always striking, vibrant, and somewhat abstract. Harrison's work at this time was rooted in an organic, transcendental concept of the sublime in which the individual psychology is always cradled. Peter Acheson, a Brooklyn artist, contributor to the Brooklyn Rail, described Harrison in a review. To Max Jacob

James Harrison saw himself as a link in a chain of visionary artists. He did not necessarily prefer religious imagery. His eye saw quality in artists as diverse as
Leonard Baskin Leonard Baskin (August 15, 1922 – June 3, 2000) was an American sculptor, draughtsman and graphic artist, as well as founder of the Gehenna Press (1942–2000). One of America's first fine arts presses, it went on to become "one of the most imp ...
and
Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mothe ...
. To Harrison, ALL images were religious, in that the contents of the imagination were sacred. He understood that imaging and dreaming were processes; the point of modern art was to reveal the process as much as the resulting images. He read his drawings as texts of the Collective Unconscious, where meaning is elusive, changeable, layered, and funny. Baroque webs and fiery geometries dance together, delineating, as
James Hillman James Hillman (April 12, 1926 – October 27, 2011) was an American psychologist. He studied at, and then guided studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. He founded a movement toward archetypal psychology and retired into private practi ...
calls archetypes, "the skeletal structures of the psyche".

In 1982, under a program sponsored by the New York Department of Cultural Affairs, to expiate his public assistance, Harrison started working part time for a non-profit gallery in Greenpoint called A Place Apart. There he met a younger generation of artist;

Chris Martin Christopher Anthony John Martin (born 2 March 1977) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist, pianist, rhythm guitarist and co-founder of the rock band Coldplay. Born in Exeter, Devon, he went to Univ ...

, Peter Acheson, Kathy Bradford and David Kapp are among some, who were quite taken with him and his work. And at their encouragement he began to actively seek an audience for his work again. Apocalyptic Shepherd

Loren Munk, a working artist living in New York who writes under the pseudonym, James Kalm, describes A Place Apart Gallery in an article as: Up until his death, Harrison painted. At this time, he was undergoing another kind of spiritual rejuvenation which is apparent in the vibrantly colored works produced in the late 80s. Harrison was also exhibiting regularly, gaining recognition and beginning to obtain critical acclaim. Harrison's quest for self-discovery and his private theology of light were themes that he considered for many years. The majority of his paintings and drawings bear multiple dates indicating that they were reworked, enforcing an intense introspection and attests to his poverty and obscurity: the vast majority of his works were never seen or offered for sale. In 2006, the ''New York Times'' art critic Ken Johnson reviewed James Harrison. The article pertaining to a posthumous show held at the Luise Ross Gallery in the spring states:

Exhibitions

* 1983: A Place Apart Gallery, Brooklyn, NY * 1987: "Four Year Retrospective", LedisFlam, Brooklyn, NY * 1988: Galerie Vincent Steinmetz, Amsterdam, Netherlands * 1988: Shaffy Cultural Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands * 1989: Addison Ripley Gallery, Washington, DC * 1989: Dart Gallery, Chicago, IL * 1989: Galerie Brinkman, Amsterdam, Netherlands * 1989: LedisFlam, Brooklyn, NY * 1989: Martha Schaeffer Fine Arts, New York, NY * 1990: "James Harrison: Portraits 1955-1990", LedisFlam, New York, NY * 1992: "James Harrison", Parameters Galleries, the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA * 2006: Luise Ross Gallery, Chelsea, NY * 2015: "A Life's Work - James Harrison", Schmidt's Antiques Inc., Ypsilanti, MI * 2016: "James C. Harrison: Retrospective of Personal Artwork", Detroit Design Center, Detroit, MI * 2016: "Remembering Myself", Schmidt's Antiques Inc., Ypsilanti, MI * 2017: "Buried Alive", Elephant Room Gallery, Chicago, IL, * 2017: "Investigating Identity" at Kreft Gallery, Concordia University, Ann Arbor, MI * 2017: "Stepping out of Darkness" at the Michigan Modernism show in Southfield, Michigan * 2019: "Imaging Each Other: James C. Harrison & Darin Latimer Art Show", Schmidt's Antiques Inc., Ypsilanti, MI

References

External links

Art in Review - James Harrison -- The Future is in the Past
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, James C. 1925 births Olivet College alumni Artists from Detroit 1990 deaths Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni Cass Technical High School alumni