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.
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