About the Artist

I, William Geoffrey Harris, also known as Geoffrey Harris, am a modern artist mainly known for my rare and unique lacquer on Masonite paintings. I was born in Los Angeles, CA in 1940, and grew up in La Cañada and Pasadena, and from an early age loved to draw and paint. After high school I studied art at the University of the Americas in Mexico City, traveled to India, attended Cal State University, LA, with an M.A. in painting in 1969, taught art in high schools from 1966-1981. And from that time to the present have created many paintings that have been displayed in juried shows and received numerous awards from local art associations, as well as having my work included in private collections and had a one man show at the Paideia Gallery on Los Angeles' "Gallery Row" on La Cienega Blvd. in 1963. Also I restored the ceiling frescoes at the Moral Rearmament Bldg. in Los Angeles and painted a seventy-two foot historical fresco seco mural in 1973 at the Torrance Historical Society Museum in the old Post Office Building in Torrance, CA, which depicted a time span in the history of the Torrance area from the founding of the Missions by Junipero Serra and the Spanish land grants, up to farming, the 1920's and modern times.   

During the time I spent studying art in Mexico from 1960-1962, I encountered tremendous creative energy along with a pervasive indigenous influence, and I was greatly impressed by the Mexican artists. And it was at that time I was introduced to the synthetic painting medium of  Pyroxylin (lacquer), which was also used by Siqueiros. Because of its bright colors, permanence, and its quick drying qualities that necessitated spontaneity and speedy painting, it became my preferred painting medium throughout much of the 1960's and 1970's until I had to stop painting with lacquer because of its toxic fumes. I also have worked in other media, including oil, watercolor, buon fresco and life drawing. I currently live and work out of  Orange County, California.