Biography from Blake Benton Fine Art, Artists G - K:
| Born
in Philadelphia in 1854, Birge Harrison received his early artistic
instruction at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1876 he met
John Singer Sargent in Philadelphia at the Centennial Exposition. Advised by him
to continue his studies under Sargent's own master, Carolus-Duran,
Harrison left for Paris in 1876. He enrolled in Carolus-Duran's atelier
in August 1877, and the following year attended Alexandre Cabanel's
classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
In 1882 Harrison received
official recognition when Novembre became one of the first paintings to
be purchased by the French government. At this time he spent his
summers working in Brittany and Giverny in Normandy. He traveled
extensively in India, Australia, Asia and Africa during which time he
did illustrative work for Scribner's, Century and Harper's magazine.
Upon returning to the United States, he painted tonalist-style landscapes and city scenes. A
critic once said "Harrison understood the narrative content in order to
emphasize the landscape's decorative and emotional elements. He
imparted a theme of transience in his works by the barrenness imparted
in his paintings." Often this melancholy mood was reinforced by a
solitary figure, often pensive and withdrawn.
Harrison then
left his early style of Tonalism for a more plein-air impressionist picked
up from Jules Bastien-Lepage with whom he studied with at Pont-Aven.
Then came another major breakthrough in his style when he was shown by
an unidentified Scandinavian painter the "secret of atmospheric
painting...[and] made clear to me... the importance of Vibration and
refraction in landscape painting."
In 1905, Harrison helped found
the Art Students League Summer School in Woodstock, New York, and was later
credited as being one of the founding members of that art colony. Harrison was elected to
the National Academy of Design in 1910, the most prestigious honor that
could be bestowed on an American artist. He exhibited regularly at the
Society of American Artists, the National Academy of Design and the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1889 until his death in
Woodstock in 1928.
He became known for landscapes, cityscapes of New
York and Los Angeles, scense of Quebec, street scenes, and Indians.
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Biography from AskART:
| Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Birge Harrison has been described
as one of America's leading tonalist painters. His specialties
became
moonlit landscapes, pueblos, and Indian genre, but unlike many of his
Impressionist contemporaries, who liked to paint "en plein air," he
painted from memory and preferred a muted palette. He was
one of
the first generation of painters and teachers in the Woodstock, New
York art colony, which under his influence became a center of
Tonalist-style painting. He also became a part of the Byrdcliffe
Arts Colony,
affiliated with the Arts and Crafts Movement. In the 1880s, he
did
illustrations for Scribner's, magazine, which sent him on travels
around the world.
He first enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts and advised by John Singer Sargent, went to Paris in 1875.
He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, with Alexander Cabanel, and in the
atelier of Carolus Duran. Then he traveled world wide for Scribner's
including to India, Australia, and the South Seas.
In England
he was influenced by the atmospheric effects of the works of John Crome
and John Constable, and he concluded that the highest achievement in
modern art was landscape painting.
He returned to New York,
where he taught landscape painting and was Director at the Art Students
League. Stressing the importance of the big vision and atmospheric
effects and mood in landscape painting, he founded the Woodstock Art Colony and made his home in that picturesque Dutch region of the
Catskills. He also painted New York City scenes and snow scenes.
From
1880, he made several trips West, living briefly in Espanola, New
Mexico and Santa Barbara, California. From 1906 to 1911, he served as
Director of a summer school at Woodstock under a program run by the Art
Students League, and he was credited with being a major positive
influence on the development of the Woodstock Art Colony.
Exhibitions include:
Expo Universale, Paris, 1889 (medal); Columbian Exposition (Chicago),
1893; Buffalo Exposition, 1901; Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St Louis), 1904; Panama Pacific International Exposition, 1915.
Collection: Luxembourg Museum (Paris).
Sources include:
Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art
http://www.museum.cornell.edu/byrdcliffe/
Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940
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Birge Harrison is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exhibition 1915
Tonalism
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