John Harris (born 29 July 1948 in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

)John Harris: Biography
Alison Eldred (Artists' Agent) website. is a British artist and illustrator, known for working in the

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

genre. His paintings have been used on book covers for many authors, including

Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...

, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Ben Bova,

Wilbur Smith Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Zambian-born British-South African novelist specialising in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints ...

Jack Vance John Holbrook Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer. Though most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance, he also wrote several mystery novels under pen names. ...

Ann Leckie Ann Leckie (born 2 March 1966) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Her 2013 debut novel '' Ancillary Justice'', in part about artificial consciousness and gender-blindness, won the 2014 Hugo Award for "Best Novel", as well as ...

, and

John Scalzi John Michael Scalzi II (born May 10, 1969) is an American science fiction author and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his ''Old Man's War'' series, three novels of which have been nom ...

. John Harris artworks
at ISFDB His work has covered many genres and although he made his name in the science-fiction genres, he is now exploring a new realm, the imaginative realism of aerial landscapes.

Biography

John Harris began painting aged 14 and entered

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable a ...

College of Art at the age of 16. After completing a foundation course, he entered Exeter College of Art in 1967 to study painting. Graduating in 1970 he travelled and studied

transcendental meditation Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a form of silent mantra meditation advocated by the Transcendental Meditation movement. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi created the technique in India in the mid-1950s. Advocates of TM claim that the technique promotes ...

, an increasing influence on his works. On his return to England in 1976, Harris began exploring the theme of monumental scale and space, producing a series of science fiction art. In the late 1970s he joined Young Artists, the premier agency for the emerging movement of science fiction art in the UK. Harris continued to specialise in large-scale commissions for companies such as

Philips Electronics Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

and

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

. His illustrations during this period have now become collectors' items, including

Jack McDevitt Jack McDevitt (born April 14, 1935) is an American science fiction author whose novels frequently deal with attempts to make contact with alien races, and with archaeology or xenoarchaeology. Most of his books follow either superluminal pilo ...

's Nebula Award-winning '' Seeker''. His painting ''MASS: The Building of FTL1'' was used by

Psygnosis Psygnosis Limited (known as SCE Studio Liverpool or simply Studio Liverpool from 1999) was a British video game developer and publisher headquartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. Founded in 1984 by Ian Hetherington, Jonathan Ell ...

for the cover of their 1990 video game '' Awesome''. During the early 1980s Harris was commissioned by

Sinclair Research Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was originally incorporated in 1973 as Westminster Mail Order Ltd, renamed Sinclair Instrument Ltd, then Science of Cambridge Ltd, then ...

to produce cover art for the user manuals of the

ZX81 The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cos ...

, and

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

home computers. In 1984 Harris was commissioned to create a painting of the Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'' launch at

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

's Kennedy Space Centre. He was captivated by the intense tangerine glow created by the craft's exhaust and made a painting of the shuttle's gantry tower, bathed in light. That work is now part of the Smithsonian Museum Collection. In 1998 Royal Caribbean commissioned him to paint a number of large canvases to be displayed as permanent fixtures in their new range of ocean cruise ships, resulting in over 70 marine paintings - many of them depicting

J-class yacht A J-Class yacht (sometimes called a "J-boat") is a single-masted racing yacht built to the specifications of Nathanael Herreshoff's Universal Rule. The J-Class are considered the peak racers of the era when the Universal Rule determined eligib ...

s. In 2000

Paper Tiger Books Paper Tiger Books was a British publishing house which focused primarily on books of modern art, specifically the visionary, the fantastic, and science fiction, and an imprint of Dragons World Ltd. It was started in 1976 by Hubert Schaafsma and b ...

published a collection of Harris's work, ''Mass''.

Rainmaker Entertainment Mainframe Studios is a Canadian computer animation company owned by Wow Unlimited Media and based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded in 1993 as Mainframe Entertainment Inc. by Christopher Brough, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell, Gavin Blair and ...

based in Vancouver, hired Harris in 2007, to work on

The Weinstein Company The Weinstein Company (usually credited or abbreviated as TWC) was an American independent film studio, founded in New York City by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in March 2005. TWC was one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America pri ...

's movie, ''

Escape from Planet Earth ''Escape from Planet Earth'' is a 2013 computer animated comedy-adventure science fiction film produced by Rainmaker Entertainment and distributed by The Weinstein Company in the United States and Entertainment One in Canada, directed by Cal Br ...

''.current.com entertainment news
In 2010 Harris became a regular contributor to the exhibitions of the Symposium of Imaginative Realism (Illuxcon). In 2014,

Titan Books Titan Publishing Group is the publishing division of Titan Entertainment Group, which was established in 1981. The books division has two main areas of publishing: film and television tie-ins and cinema reference books; and graphic novels and c ...

published a new collection of his works, entitled ''Beyond the Horizon; The Art of John Harris''. Harris lives in

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

. He is married to Sarah Harris and has two children, Sophie and Ben. In 2015 Harris received the Chesley Award for Life Time Achievement.

Awards

In 2008 and 2014, Harris was nominated for the

Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist The Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist is given each year for artists of works related to science fiction or fantasy released in the previous calendar year. The award has been given annually under several names since 1955, with the except ...

. In 2015, he won the Chesley Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.

Publications

* ''Mass''.

, May 2000,

References

External links

*
John Harris
at Sailing Art by Glyn Macey (SailingArt.co.uk)
Official films
at Vimeo.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, John Living people British speculative fiction artists British illustrators 1948 births British painters British male painters Science fiction artists Artists from London