Background
Harrison was born on January 17, 1853 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Harrison was born on January 17, 1853 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Harrison studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, 1871-1872. He studied for a short time at the San Francisco School of Design. In 1879, he moved to Paris and studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Jules Bastien-Lepage.
Chafing under the restraints of the schools, Harrison traveled to Brittany, where at Pont-Aven and Concarneau he turned his attention to marine painting and landscape. A figure-piece he sent to the 1882 Salon attracted attention, a boy daydreaming on the beach, which he called Châteaux en Espagne (Castles in Spain) (1882, Metropolitan Museum of Art). In the 1885 Salon, he had a large canvas of several nude women called En Arcadie (1885, Musée d'Orsay), a remarkable study of flesh tones in light and shade which had a strong influence on the younger men of the day. This received an honourable mention, the first of many awards conferred upon him. His reputation rests on marine pictures such as The Wave (1885, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts), with long waves rolling in on the beach, and great stretches of open sea under poetic conditions of light and colour.
Member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil Colours, member of the Secession societies of Munich, Vienna and Berlin, member of the National Academy of Design, member of the Society of American Artists
