William Laurel Harris
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William Laurel Harris (born Brooklyn, New York 18 February 1870; son of Henry and Julia {Gillingham} Harris; died Lake George, New York 24 September 1924), muralist, educator, editor and arts organizer was member Municipal Art Society (of which he was president in 1912), the Architectural League of New York (of which he was vice president), The National Mural Painters Society, and The Fine Arts Federation; he also founded the Art Centre with Katherine Dreier. He painted murals, designed the decorative elements, and continued the work of John LaFarge at the Church of Saint Paul the Apostle (also known as the Paulist Fathers Church) on 59th Street and 9th Avenue, New York City. The church was called "an experiment in democracy in American art" by the order's founder, Isaac Thomas Hecker. Other contributors to its decoration include Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Stanford White, Frederick William MacMonnies, and Bela Platt.
Harris laboured on this project for 15 years, from 1898 to 1913 until fired by the Paulists in what appears to have been a personal dispute. A disastrous "cleaning" in 1958 removed fourteen of Harris's Saints on side chapel walls, much of Harris's unique ornamentation, and his color treatment. An unimaginative renovation in the 1990's did not restore any of Harris's decorative painting, but did preserve many of his most important works, including a nativity scene, the Virgin Mary enthroned, St. Patrick's and St. Catherine's altars, "The Precious Blood", a carved and painted frieze featuring lambs, a memorial to deceased Paulists, and a 60 foot wide crucifixion, considered by some critics to be one of the most impressive religious paintings in the United States.
Harris's other work included paintings and color schemes in the church of St. Nicholas of the Children in Pasaic, NJ, a Dominican Monastery in Hunts Point, NY, Catholic Club of New York, as well as outdoor murals and chapels at Lake George, NY.
Orphaned in Brooklyn at age 4, Harris was raised by his grandmother in Windsor, Vermont. He there met Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Maxfield Parrish, Stephen Parrish; and began his studies with Thomas Dewing.
Harris traveled to Boston and studied with Dewing at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At age 17 he was Dewings monitor at the Art Students League in New York City.
The next year Harris studied art at Académie Julian, Paris, with Paul Gauguin, and at École des Beaux-Arts where he became massier under Gerome.
Among his educational work was the founding of an "art and trades school" called the Art Centre. He also trained younger painters as assistants during his projects. Harris himself had been an assistant to Edwin Howland Blashfield during the painting of the dome of Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He also wrote editorials for the New York Times and was editor of Good Furniture, a magazine of home decor.
William Laurel Harris died at age 54 at his studio adjacent to the Paulist Fathers retreat at Lake George, NY, of cerebral apoplexy.
