With a career spanning most of the twentieth century, Paul Harris (1925-2018) evaded definition materially, thematically, and aesthetically as he confidently forged his own path in art and life. His formal training in painting, Harris’s media ranged from crayon and pencil to oil paint, fabric, and bronze. Likewise, having come of age as an artist in the effervescent 1950s, when stylistic allegiance was paramount, Harris was singularly comfortable across the spectrum of abstraction and figuration in two or three dimensions. In drawing, printmaking, and painting, his markmaking is richly lyrical, with spirited colors in vibrant dynamism; his bronze and soft sculptures are expansive in form and shape, their intricacies in surface betraying his early training in painting… Throughout his life, Harris was faithfully disciplined, consummately passionate, boldly experimenting with form, content, and media to find his fullest expression.
