Jon Harris (artist)

Jon Harris (born 1943) is an artist, illustrator, and calligrapher, who has a particular interest in architecture and topography. He lives in Cambridge, which he has made his base since he graduated from Cambridge University, with a degree in Art History, in 1965. Cambridge is also the principal subject of his drawings.

Jon Harris was born 1943, in North Staffordshire; he had an itinerant, partly colonial youth. He was educated at Winchester College, where he was a scholar. He began in Architecture at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University in 1961, and finished in Art History.

With his encyclopaedic knowledge of the architectural history of Cambridge, Jon Harris is much in demand as a historical advisor on developments and re-furbishments. He is a member of Cambridge City Council's Design & Conservation Panel, before which significant new developments are brought for appraisal. In 2007 he advised Magdelene College on the colour scheme for the restoration of a range of medieval buildings in Magdelene Street, Cambridge.

Publications

Jon Harris published an article in Granta in 1962 on Cambridge’s 19th century architect/developer Richard Reynolds Rowe. He taught drawing for 25 years in the Cambridge Arts School (CCAT, now Anglia Ruskin University), and painted (topography and light) until this career came to end with a joint exhibition between the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge University School of Architecture. A catalogue was published by the Fitzwilliam Museum.

He wrote for eight years on the landscapes and settlements of the four East Anglia counties and explored them on foot. In 2003 he was lured by his friend and former Reuters correspondent, Brian Mooney, into walking the shores and inland boundaries of the county of Essex. The report of the journey, with text by Brian Mooney and numerous illustrations by Jon Harris, was published as Frontier Country (Thorogood 2004).

Jon Harris has also done various maps for local National Trust estates. He has mapped the Cambridge Preservation Society’s new reserve at Coton and (for Country Life) drawn a ‘Cambridge in a Day’ map to illustrate Jeremy Musson’s article on what to see in five or six hours.

Jon Harris is particularly known for his illustrated, calligraphic, maps. These remarkable works of draughtsmanship combine maps, vignette drawings, and calligraphic text. He has made hundreds of such drawings over the years. Much of this work has been undertaken for humble and ephemeral purposes, such as giving road directions to a particular wedding, or explaining a change of address.

Cambridge Book Project

Jon Harris embarked in July 2008 on the writing of an illustrated book about the buildings and history of Cambridge. This is expected to be published by the Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, in 2010.

References

Painter About Cambridge. Published by Fitzwilliam Museum, 1997.
Frontier Country. Brian Mooney, illustrated by Jon Harris. Published by Thorogood, 2004.