Kris Nelson

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Kristin (Harmon) Nelson (born June 25, 1945) is an American actress and painter. She is the daughter of American football star Tom Harmon and actress Elyse Knox. McGill is her nickname from her father. Actor Mark Harmon is her brother, and actress Kelly Harmon is her sister.

In 1963, at the age of seventeen, she married actor and recording artist Rick Nelson. They had four children:

Tracy Nelson, born 1963
Matthew Nelson and Gunnar Nelson (twins), born 1967 - Recording Artists Nelson
Sam Nelson, born 1974

Kristin Nelson's art work expresses a simplicity and innocence, which touches the deepest of our emotions. As an American primitive painter, Kristin has been collected and exhibited since the age of seventeen when, inspired by the death of President John F. Kennedy, she was moved to express her feelings in the painting "When the Kennedys Were in the White House." A self-taught artist, she has continued to paint all her life, coming into national prominence when Jacqueline Kennedy purchased her painting of the White House from her first one-woman show.

Today, Kristin's paintings are widely collected and commissioned throughout the country. She is represented by the Frank J. Miele Gallery in New York City, 1086 Madison Avenue, NY 10028 (212) 249-7250 and the Ernie Wolfe Gallery in Los Angeles, 1655 Sawtelle Blvd., LA 90025 (310) 478-2960.

Kristin Nelson's first book Out Of My Mind (Kristin Nelson Tinker) was published by Harry N. Abrams in 1997. It is an art-autobiography containing more than one hundred full color paintings that portray thirty years of American dreaming in the decades following a postwar America. The book resonates powerfully with the readers of Nelson's generation. Kris uses her paintings, family photographs, diary entries, her poems and well-chosen selections from contemporary songs and poems. She tells the story of her life growing up in the Fifties in a formidable family. One that, like the nation at large - papered over the reality of emotional pain and conflict with the images of happiness; of a marriage to a gifted man who got lost on the way to adulthood. Her struggles as a single parent, intense emotional crisis, recovery, and an increasingly strong belief in herself as an artist are all part of the story.

Out Of My Mind is a moving record of the great (and, occasionally, the not so great) moments in her family history, an extraordinary document of a life divided between the private quest for emotional truth and the landscape of our collective myths.