James C. Harrison
Product Details
James C. Harrison, American, 1925-1990. A 1960s-1970s acrylic on canvas assemblage with painted wooden pediment and plaque attachment, titled “Cemetery Path (O’ Rise Again)”. Signed “J. Harrison”, dated “3.30.67, 11.15.74” and titled verso. Image 15 1/2 x 21", in an artist made frame 21 1/4 x 39 1/2" overall.
“Certain totems, often obscured under crisscrossing lines, appear time and again- the triangle, an emerald door, a river or tree, Appropriately for an artist like Harrison, they’re all suggestive of rebirth. Indeed, many of the canvases on display are topped by pediments of one sort another that call to mind classic temples with their implicit promise of passage and redemption”
- Michael Hodges, The Detroit News, March 17, 2016
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Artist video:
Biography:
Born November 27th, 1925 in Detroit, Harrison graduated from Cass Tech High School with a commercial art degree in 1943. Harrison went on to study briefly at Cranbrook Academy of Art and Olivet College before realizing that a traditional educational setting was not agreeable with him. Thus, he became largely a self-taught artist, and moved to New York City in 1950. A member of the second-generation New York School, Harrison progresses from Abstract to Neo Expressionism with a disarming intimacy.
Within Harrison’s work, there is a compelling tension between classical allegories, Jungian imagery, and intense subjectivity. His distinctive ‘rough handling’ and layered visual syntax shows an artist's struggle to transcend his own internalized chaos. Frequently collaborating with photographer Doug Quackenbush, Harrison befriended and exchanged works with Cy Twombly in 1955., Participating in several group exhibitions. Harrison had his first solo exhibition at A Place Apart Gallery in Brooklyn in 1983.
For many years Harrison held his paintings as his own closely guarded secrets. He would often revisit his works adding to or further explaining his inspiration for each one. As his interests changed or his understanding deepened, Harrison would inscribe the backs of his works to reflect this evolution. These writings now shed light on Harrison’s complex personality as he critiqued his own art, days, weeks or even decades later. Harrison had his first solo exhibition at A Place Apart Gallery in Brooklyn in 1983.
“To Harrison, all images were religious, in that the contents of the imagination were sacred. He understood that imaging and dreaming were processes; the point of modern art was to reveal the process as much as the resulting images. He read his drawings as texts of the Collective Unconscious, where meaning is elusive, changeable, layered, and funny. Baroque webs and fiery geometries dance together, delineating, as James Hillman calls archetypes, "the skeletal structures of the psyche".”
- The Brooklyn Rail, April, 2006
“It is not uncommon to feel suddenly immobilized by a rush of sublime rapture as one stands before his work.“
- Gregory Gilligan, Contributing Editor to Art International and Arts Magazine, 1989
Solo Exhibitions:
1983 A Place Apart Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1986, 1987, 1989, 1990 LedisFlam Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1988 Galerie Vincent Steinmetz, Amsterdam, Netherlands
1988 Shaffy Cultural Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands
1989 Galerie Brinkman, Amsterdam, Netherlands
1989 Dart Gallery, Chicago, IL
1989 Addison/Ripley Gallery, Washington, D.C.
1989: Martha Schaeffer Fine Arts, New York, NY
1992 Parameters Galleries, the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA
Group Exhibitions:
1946 Olivet College, Olivet, MI
1947 Wehye Gallery, New York, NY
1948 Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY
1949 Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI
1949 Grand Rapids Art Gallery, Grand Rapids, MI
1952 Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
1952 Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH
1952 Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, Colorado Spring, CO
1952 San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
1954 Morris Gallery, New York, NY
1955 Wildenstein Gallery, New York, NY
1956 Theater East Gallery, New York, NY
1957, 1958 Bodley Gallery, New York, NY
1957 St. Marks on the Bowery, New York, NY
1963 Olivet College, Olivet, MI
1968 Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
1968 Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL
1978 C.G. Jung Foundation, New York, NY
1978 Harkness House Gallery, New York, NY
1982, 1983 A Place Apart Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1982 BACA Downtown, Brooklyn, NY
1984 Art Galaxy, New York, NY
1986 Gerard Gallery, New York, NY
1986 Minor Injury, Brooklyn, NY
1987, 1988 LedisFlam Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1987 Pulitzer Art Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland
1988 RPM Studio, New York, NY
1988 Arsenal Gallery, New York, NY