HARRISON Thomas Alexander

LE ROCHER DES SAINTS

Oil on canvas: 50.5 x 100 cm / 19.8 x 39.3 ins
Signed lower left

Painter of (animated) landscapes and seascapes; watercolourist.

Thomas Harrison was the brother of Lowell Birge Harrison. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts before going on to study under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Bastien Lepage at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. With other American artists, including Charles Fromuth, he was drawn to Pont-Aven; he was particularly interested in picturesque scenes. His work was very much admired by Marcel Proust and he participated in many exhibitions, including those of the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris (honourable mention in 1885), the Exposition Universelle of 1889 (gold medal), the Royal Academy and Suffolk Street in London and Munich (second medal in 1891). He received honorary medals in Brussels and Ghent in 1892. He was made Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur and was promoted to Officier in 1901. He became an associate member of the National Academy of Design, the National Society of Arts and Letters, the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil Colours in London and the Secessionist groups of Berlin and Munich.

Some of his works are at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brauer Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay, the Pensylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Sheldon Museum of Art, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts and at the White House.

Period:
Philadelphia 1853 - Paris 1930
American School

Exhibitions:
Chicago - Hagerstown - Laurel - Lincoln - New York City - Paris - Philadelphia - Quimper - Valparaiso - Washington

Literature:
E. Bénézit, "Dictionary of Artists", Paris 2006, Vol. 6, p. 1182-1183.