THOMAS ERAT HARRISON (1858-1917)

THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR
Brush & wash with gouache, with faint pencil outlines
26.9 x 35.5 cm
 
PROVENANCE:
With the Grosvenor Gallery, London (by 1879)
Alistair Matthews (1907-1985), London;
Private collection, U.K.
 
EXHIBITED:
London, Grosvenor Gallery, Winter Exhibition 1879-1880
 
 
 
 
 
The present work is one of six Greek mythological subjects which Harrison exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1879. They were published as heliogravures by Harrison & Sons to illustrate a volume retelling six of the greatest classical Hellenic tales, with text from Charles Kingsley's Heroes. The scenes depicted were Hera and Jason; Stheno and Euryale; Dictys, Danae, and Perseus; the Sirens; Theseus and Sinis; and Theseus and the Minotaur (also with the Nonesuch Gallery). The book, Six Greek Myths, was dedicated to Sir William Blake Richmond, R.A., perhaps a friend of Harrison's through his work with stained-glass design. 
 
 
Harrison was born the son of a builder in St John's Wood, and began his artistic career as more of a decorative artist than a painter; indeed, he does not seem to have undergone a formal education as the latter. Harrison was an early member of the Art Workers' Guild (he is mentioned in their accounts of 1905), a group traditionally associated with artisan craftsmen and decorative artists that had been established in 1884 and was strongly influenced by the ideals of William Morris and his circle. 
 
He exhibited at the Royal Academy, in Nottingham, and at the Art Workers' Guild. Among various public and private collections, the University of Texas holds his designs for twelve stained glass windows on the theme of the Seasons in Spenser's ‘The Faerie Queen’, at Betteshanger House (the home of Walter Henry James, 2nd Baron Northbourne). Harrison also designed bookplates, including one for the same Lord Northbourne, and he published a book on decorative arts titled Some terms commonly used in ornamental design (London, 1906).