John Harris (curator)
John Frederick Harris OBE is an English curator, historian of architecture, gardens and architectural drawings, and the author of more than 25 books and catalogues, and 200 articles. He is a Fellow and Curator Emeritus of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, founding Trustee of Save Britain's Heritage and Save Europe's Heritage, and founding member and Honorary Life President of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums.
Career
John Harris left school at the age of 14 in 1946. He travelled and took on miscellaneous jobs, before starting his proper career in 1954 working in an antiques shop, Collin and Winslow. In 1956 he joined the Royal Institute of British Architects Library and Drawings Collection in London, becoming curator of its British Architectural Library's Drawings Collection from 1960 to 1986. This included the establishment in 1972 of a permanent home for the Drawings Collection in the James Adam designed house at 21 Portman Square, next door to and sharing with the Courtauld Institute at Home House, 20 Portman Square. Harris founded and organised 42 exhibitions at the Heinz Gallery, on the ground floor of 21 Portman Square, opened in 1972, designed by Stefan Buzas and Alan Irvine, given by Mr and Mrs Henry J Heinz II, being the first purpose built gallery for the display ofarchitectural drawings in the English speaking world. The Gallery was purchased in 2000 by the Irish Architectural Archive and moved in 2003-4 to the ground floor of their relocated premises at 45 Merrion Square, Dublin, which opened to the public in 2005. RIBA's Drawings Collection Gallery was re-established in 2004 as part of the joint V&A and RIBA Architecture Partnership, creating the Architecture Gallery in Room 128 at the V&A.
Harris was a co-curator of the seminal Destruction of the Country House exhibition held at the V&A in 1974, with Sir Roy Strong and Marcus Binney, which gave impetus to the movement to conserve British country houses and the founding in 1975 of Save Britain's Heritage. He was editor of Studies in Architecture 1976–99. In 1996 he was a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Center, Getty Villa, Santa Monica. Harris also played a crucial role in the establishment of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal and the Heinz Architecture Centre in the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. He was a member for ten years of Mr Paul Mellon's London Acquisitions Committee. Harris worked on the Victoria and Albert Primary Galleries Project. He has been on the Board of Trustees of The Architecture Foundation. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He is an expert on Palladian architecture, and has written about, among many others, Lord Burlington, William Kent and Sir William Chambers.
Harris is married to American historian and author Dr Eileen Harris, has a son, Lucian Guthrie, and a daughter, Georgina, and lives in London and Badminton, Gloucestershire.
Books
- Master Hands Series, Tiranti,,. A collection of pattern books with various comparative plates of 1744 to 1812 Tiranti, ASIN: B0000CKZQR.
- Buildings of England series, with Nikolaus Pevsner, Penguin. Revised by Nicholas Antram in 1970 and 1989.
- Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Series, Country Life Books,,.
- with J. Mordaunt Crook and Eileen Harris, Zwemmer,,.
- Irvington Pub,,.
- An index to over 2000 country houses illustrated in 107 books of country views published between 1715 and 1872, together with a list of British country house guides and country house art collection catalogues for the period 1726–1880, Pinhorns Handbooks No 7,,. 2nd edition Pinhorns,,.
- Gregg Revivals,,.
- Gregg Revivals,,.
- with Roy Strong and Marcus Binney, Thames & Hudson Ltd,,.
- with natural history notes by Dr Martyn Rix, 2 volumes, Basilisk Press, limited edition of 515 copies, based on the 1975-6 RIBA exhibition.
- compiled by John Harris in association with The Victoria and Albert Museum for the Garden Exhibition, Octopus Books,,.
- Sotheby Parke Bernet,,.
- with Marcus Binney and Emma Winnington, Save Britain's Heritage,,.
- Rizzoli, paperback,,.
- Genius of Architecture Series, Allen and Unwin,,. Paperback edition ,.
- with Jill Lever and Margaret Richardson, Trefoil Publications Ltd,,. Also,.
- American Institute of Architects Press, paperback,,.
- Trefoil Publications Ltd, hardcover,,.
- Carlo Fontana: The Drawings at Windsor Castle.
- with Nancy Aakre and Lisa Taylor, Cooper-Hewitt Museum,,.
- Studies in Architecture, Zwemmer,,.
- with Stephen Astley, Janine Barrier, and Gertrud Siedmann, edited by Michael Snodin, V&A Publications,,.
- John Murray,,. Large print edition ISIS Large Print Books,,. Paperback edition John Murray,,.
- John Murray,,. Large print edition Ulverscroft,,. Paperback edition John Murray,,. Paperback large print edition Ulverscroft,,.
- Yale University Press,,.
- Badminton: The Duke of Beaufort, His House.
Editor
- edited with A.A. Tait, Oxford University Press,,.
- Oriel Press,,.
- Presented to Sir John Summerson on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday Together with a Select Bibliography of His Published Writings, edited with Howard Colvin, published by Allen Lane,,.
Exhibition catalogues
- with Robert Hradsky, for Sir John Soane's Museum,.
- Sir John Soane's Museum.
- Yale University Press,.
- Exhibition to Benefit the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture, Sotheby's,,.
- Yale University Press,, which won the Architectural Exhibition Catalogue Award of the Society of Architectural Historians in 1995.
- An Exhibition of the Memorial and Cemetery Architecture of the Great War, with Gavin Stamp, at the RIBA Heinz Gallery, London.
- RIBA Heinz Gallery, exhibition 9 December 1975 to 20 March 1976.
- Headfort House and Robert Adam Drawings from The Collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon, at the RIBA Heinz Gallery, London.
- The King's Arcadia: Inigo Jones and the Stuart Court with Stephen Orgel and Roy Strong, a quatercentenary exhibition at the Banqueting House, Whitehall, London.
Essays, chapters and introductions
- Precedents and Various Designs Collected by C.H. Tatham in In Search of Modern Architecture: A Tribute to Henry-Russell Hitchcock, edited by Helen Searing, Architectural History Foundation/Mit Press Series,,.
- by Frederick Michael Pick, Stair & Company,,. Introduction titled "Architectural Drawings: A Short Historiography".
- , 4 volumes, reproduced works by Colen Campbell, J. Badeslade, John Rocque, James Gandon, John Woolfe, George Richardson, Denise Addis and Paul Breman, published by Benjamin Blom, New York.
- A Dying Breed of Connoisseur, The Art Newspaper, April 2002.
- Diverting Labyrinths, Country Life magazine, 11 January 1990.
Lectures
- Sir John Soane's Museum, London, on Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages.
- on Palladian architecture in England.