Gregory Frank Harris (b.1953)

Gregory Frank Harris (Greg Harris) was born in southern California in 1953. His mother was a painter and his father a miner. He also has a twin brother, an entomologist and drummer. He began drawing and sculpting in clay by the age of five. At eight years old he began to sing and play the piano by ear. Throughout junior high and high school he had art and music classes, later studying ceramics and raku firing.

In 1972, he attended Long Beach University studying art and theater. He also, at this time, began watercolor painting and song writing. From 1973 to 1986, he played in bands at local nightclubs, then later professional ‘gigs’ in hotels on the west coast. In 1977 while on the road in Spokane, Washington, inspired by a book on French impressionism, he began to paint in acrylic and oils, copying and studying the impressionists and old masters.

In 1980, through a twist a fate, three of his old master copies ended up in the movie “Annie”. From 1982 to 1996, a personal agent sold his original impressionist oils, pastels, and watercolors to galleries across the US. During those years he was exhibiting at juried shows and winning awards, all the while plein air painting in the Laguna and Irvine Canyons. In the fall of 1985, he studied at the Art Student’s League in New York; and in 1987, he put together a large band performing his original music at the Roxey Theater in L.A.

From 1991 to 1996 he and his wife, now divorced, lived in Duxbury, Massachusetts. While in Duxbury he performed in community theater plays and musical productions. In 1996, after doing a workshop at the Fechin Institute, New Mexico, he decided to move to Santa Fe. He lived there for five years and continued his studies of contemporary realism and plein-air painting.

In November 2000 he moved to Lyme, CT to further paint from life. He also became a part-time teacher and elected member of the Lyme Art Association as well as a private instructor. Currently he is a member of the Putney painters group in Vermont with Richard Schmid.