Jon Harris (artist) - Publications

Publications

Jon Harris published an article in Granta in 1962 on Cambridge’s 19th century architect/developer Richard Reynolds Rowe. He taught drawing for 25 years in the Cambridge Arts School (CCAT, now Anglia Ruskin University), and painted (topography and light) until this career came to end with a joint exhibition between the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge University School of Architecture. A catalogue was published by the Fitzwilliam Museum.

He wrote for eight years on the landscapes and settlements of the four East Anglia counties and explored them on foot. In 2003 he was lured by his friend and former Reuters correspondent, Brian Mooney, into walking the shores and inland boundaries of the county of Essex. The report of the journey, with text by Brian Mooney and numerous illustrations by Jon Harris, was published as Frontier Country (Thorogood 2004).

Jon Harris has also done various maps for local National Trust estates. He has mapped the Cambridge Preservation Society’s new reserve at Coton and (for Country Life) drawn a ‘Cambridge in a Day’ map to illustrate Jeremy Musson’s article on what to see in five or six hours.

Jon Harris is particularly known for his illustrated, calligraphic, maps. These remarkable works of draughtsmanship combine maps, vignette drawings, and calligraphic text. He has made hundreds of such drawings over the years. Much of this work has been undertaken for humble and ephemeral purposes, such as giving road directions to a particular wedding, or explaining a change of address.