Gregory Frank Harris

Gregory Frank Harris (Greg Harris) was born in southern California in 1953. His mother was a painter and his father a miner. He also has a twin brother, an entomologist and drummer. He began drawing and sculpting in clay by age five. At eight years old he began to sing and play the piano by ear. Throughout junior high and high school he took art and music classes, later studying ceramics and raku firing.

In 1972, he attended Long Beach University, studying art and theater. He also, at this time, began watercolor painting and songwriting. From 1973 to 1986, he played in bands at local nightclubs, later taking professional "gigs" in hotels on the West Coast. In 1977, while on the road in Spokane, Washington, inspired by a book on French Impressionism, he began to paint in acrylic and oils, copying and studying the Impressionists and old masters.

In 1980, through a twist of fate, three of his old-master copies ended up in the movie Annie. From 1982 to 1996, a personal agent sold his original impressionist oils, pastels, and watercolors to galleries across the U.S. During those years he exhibited at juried shows and won awards, all the while painting en plein air in the Laguna and Irvine canyons. In the fall of 1985, he studied at the Art Students League in New York; and in 1987, he put together a large band performing his original music at the Roxy Theater in L.A.

From 1991 to 1996, he and his wife, now divorced, lived in Duxbury, Massachusetts. While in Duxbury, he performed in community theater plays and musical productions. In 1996, after doing a workshop at the Fechin Institute in New Mexico, he decided to move to Santa Fe. He lived there for five years and continued his studies of contemporary realism and plein air painting.

In November 2000, he moved to Lyme, CT, to further paint from life. He also became a part-time teacher and elected member of the Lyme Art Association, as well as a private instructor. Currently he is a member of the Putney Painters group in Vermont with Richard Schmid.