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Thomas Alexander Harrison (January 17, 1853 in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaOctober 13, 1930 in Paris, France), was an American

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

painter who spent most of his career in France.

Career

He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, 1871-72. For nearly six year he worked as a draftsman for a United States government survey expedition mapping the Pacific coast. He studied for a short time at the

San Francisco School of Design San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

. 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, he traveled to Brittany, where at Pont-Aven and

Concarneau Concarneau (, meaning ''Bay of Cornouaille'') is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France. Concarneau is bordered to the west by the Baie de La Forêt. The town has two distinct areas: the modern town on the main ...

he turned his attention to marine painting and

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

. A figure-piece he sent to the 1882

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...

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 The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

), 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. ''Les Amateurs'' (1882–83, Brauer Museum of Art), was awarded a first medal at the

1889 Paris Exhibition The Exposition Universelle of 1889 () was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 5 May to 31 October 1889. It was the fourth of eight expositions held in the city between 1855 and 1937. It attracted more than thirty-two million visitors. T ...

. Other honors included the 1887 Temple Gold Medal of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and medals in Munich, Brussels, Ghent, Vienna and elsewhere. He was decorated by the Legion of Honour, and was an officier of Public Instruction, Paris. He was a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris; of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil Colours, London; of the Secession societies of Munich, Vienna and Berlin; of the National Academy of Design, the Society of American Artists, New York, and other art bodies. 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. 'The Wave' by Alexander Harrison, c

Cecilia Beaux spent the summer of 1888 in Concarneau, working in a nearby studio. She painted a portrait of Harrison, and wrote of him:

Harrison, now at the apex of his strength, had already met the "Daemon" and thrown him, in his two big pictures ''En Arcadie'' and ''The Wave''. Tall, lanky, and superbly handsome, he easily won all he appeared to care for, and much that he didn't want; but he had a religion—it was his art; an industry—it was his painting; and he had an untiring faith toward these. He could not be called a Nature-lover, for he loved Nature perhaps only when married to Art. He saw large and wished to paint large. He was enamoured of the successive opaline surfaces of the low incoming waves and strove for the Sea's gift as it comes to one facing it on long beaches. His method was searching, and had the quality of science, perhaps because he had been trained as an engineer, which profession he abandoned for painting.

Marcel Proust

Harrison rented a ramshackle cottage near the Brittany town of Beg-Meil, and each evening raced to the dunes to watch the sun set over the ocean. In late-summer 1896, he was joined there by struggling writer

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

and composer Reynaldo Hahn. He opened their eyes to how light plays on water:

We have seen the sea successively turn blood red, purple, nacreous with silver, gold, white, emerald green, and yesterday we were dazzled by an entirely pink sea specked with blue sails.

Harrison seems to have been the inspiration for the character "C," in Proust's attempted first novel ''Jean Santeuil''; along with aspects of the character "Elstir" the painter, in '' Remembrance of Things Past''.R. T. Riva, "A Probable Model for Proust's Elstir" in ''Modern Language Notes'', vol. 78, no. 3 (May 1963), Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Family

His brother, L. Birge Harrison (1854–1929), was also a painter. Another brother, Butler Harrison (died 1886), was a figure painter.

Selected paintings

File:Alexander-Harrison-Castles-in-Spain-1882-.jpg, ''Castles in Spain'' (1882), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City File:The-Amateurs Thomas-Alexander-Harrison.jpg, ''Les Amateurs'' (1882–83), Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso, Indiana En Arcadie by Thomas Alexander Harrison Musée d'Orsay RF 1316.jpg, ''En Arcadie'' (1885),

, Paris File:Marine c.1892-93 Alexander Harrison.jpg, ''Marine'' (1892–93), Musée des Beaux-Arts, Quimper, France File:Harrison solitude.jpg, ''

Solitude Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, meaning lack of socialisation. Effects can be either positive or negative, depending on the situation. Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think, or rest without distu ...

'' (1893), Musée d'Orsay, Paris

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Thomas Alexander 1853 births 1930 deaths 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters American landscape painters American marine artists Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts National Academy of Design members Pont-Aven painters Artists from Pennsylvania Painters from Pennsylvania American expatriates in France 19th-century American male artists 20th-century American male artists Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters