Painter Alfred Harris was born into a Jewish family in London, England in 1930 and trained at Willesden School of Art, then at the Royal College of Art (1952–55), alongside contemporaries including Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Peter Blake, Bridget Riley and Joe Tilson. He exhibited frequently at Ben Uri Gallery from 1951 onwards, when he joined a small group of painters and sculptors who met at the gallery to paint and draw from life. In 1953 he won the Amy Drucker Memorial Prize awarded by Ben Uri to promising young artists and in 1962 was awarded joint first prize at Ben Uri's Biblical Painting Competition. He participated in numerous group shows at Ben Uri including Twelve Contemporary Artists in 1958, alongside Auerbach and Jacob Bornfriend, among others. The following year, he Ben Uri hosted his first solo exhibition, entitled Twelve Drawings, with an accompanying large format catalogue, and a group exhibition, Eight Contemporary Artists – alongside Willy Tirr, Ben Levene, Michael Horovitz, Emmanuel Levy, Maurice Sochachewsky, Miche Ullman, Henry Sanders, Fred Kormis and Raphael Maklouf in 1965. Harris exhibited at numerous London galleries including the RBA 'Young Contemporaries' (1952 and 1953), the AIA Gallery (1954), the Beaux-Arts gallery (1956, 1958 and 1960), and the New Vision and the Grosvenor Galleries (1962 and 1963).
For seven years, beginning in the late sixties, Alfred Harris worked closely with Jacob Bornfriend, exhibiting alongside him in seven major joint shows in England, including at Ben Uri in 1974, and as part of the Uppsala Arts Festival in Sweden. Harris paid tribute to their creative friendship, declaring, ‘I know of no other person who was able to talk so simply and profoundly about art. I learned more from him than from all of my teachers’. Harris’ series of searching self-portrait ‘studies’, including both paintings and drawings, were at the centre of his later practice for more than 20 years. Harris was also a member of the London Group (1983–2009) and exhibited frequently with them during this period, as well as a member of the Royal West of England Academy. He chaired the Department of Art and Design Institute of Education between 1963 and 1988.
Alfred Harris died in Camden, north London, England on 25 February 2025. His work is held in UK collections including the Ben Uri Collection, Bradford University, the Fitzwilliam, Cambridge, the Royal College of Art, Tate and Warwick University, as well as nine public collections in Sweden, and in Japan.
