William Laurel Harris

William Laurel Harris (February 18, 1870 – September 24, 1924) was an American muralist, educator, editor and arts organizer.
Harris was a member of the 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 Pratt.
Harris labored 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. A renovation in the 1990s 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 crucifixion.
Boyhood and education.
Harris was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Henry and Julia (Gillingham) Harris. 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 T.W. Dewing.
Harris traveled to Boston and studied with Dewing at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At age 17 he was Dewing's monitor at the Art Students League in New York City.
The next year Harris studied art at Académie Julian, Paris with, among others, Paul Gauguin and at École des Beaux-Arts where he became massier under Jean-Léon Gérôme. While in Paris Harris pursued his lifelong interest in the applied arts while in Paris, studying, and perhaps working, at the Gobelin Tapestry Works.
The Paulist fathers.
The Paulists (Society of St. Paul the Apostle) were the first order in the Roman Catholic Communion founded in the United States. Featuring works by John LaFarge, Stanford White, Frederick MacMonnies, Bela Pratt, Paulist leader Isaac Hecker wished the church edifice at 59th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan to be "an experiment in Democracy in American art." In the 1890s, William Laurel Harris began, under Father George Deshon, decoration of the church. He would work and live with the Paulists until 1913, taking over from John LaFarge not only the mural paintings of Saints and Parables, but the "complete decorative scheme" of the massive edifice.
Other murals.
Along with his work for the Paulist Fathers 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.
Among his educational work was the founding of an "art and trades school" in New York City 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.
He was president of Municipal Art Society at the time of the historic 1916 city zoning resolution.
William Laurel Harris died at age 54 at his studio adjacent to the Paulist Fathers retreat at Lake George, New York, of a stroke. He is buried in Windsor, Vermont.
Writer and editor.
Harris's first articles on church decoration appear in ecclesiastical publications in 1903. He wrote book reviews for the "New York Times", compiled a published catalog of murals in the United States for the Fine Arts Federation and, for over 11 years, was contributing editor for "Good Furniture" magazine.
References and citations.
Copies of his published work, clippings, some letters and further biographical research can be see at The Main Street Museum, White River Jct., Vermont.