Portraits / Artists

William Dunlap, Painter

Maggie Dunlap, Artist, and Snitch, Dog

Yuriko Yamaguchi, Sculptor

Rockne Krebs and his daughter, Heather

William Christenberry, Photographer

Jane Livingston, The Corcoran Gallery of Art

John and Jane, Dinner for Frances Fralin

John Gossage, Photographer

Jacob Lawrence
Seattle, WA 98105
June 15th 1992

Dear Carol Harrison:

This is especially to thank you for the gift of  The very beautiful photographs. 
We shall always value and treasure them.
We continue to look at and show them. 
The overall composition, texture and value are, to us,
a most exciting work of art !

We Thank you again for this gift and wish you continued success.

Sincerely,

Jacob and Gwen Lawrence

Jacob and Gwen Lawrence, Painters, Di and Lou Stovall's home, Washington, DC

David Driskell, Artist

December 17, 2007

Dear Ms. Harrison,
 
Thank you so much for sending us the beautiful portraits of David. 
You have a real talent in capturing the spirit of an artist in a photograph. 
David must be very proud to have had you as a student. 

Best regards,

Robert E. Steele
Executive Director
David C. Driskell Center
for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture
of African Americans and the African Diaspora
The University of Maryland
College Park, MD

Claudia DeMonte and Ed McGowin, Artists

Sam Gilliam, Artist

Olivia and Jacob Kainen, Painter

Jacob Kainen
  March 27, 1987
 
Dear Carol,
 
Thanks for the lovely photographs.  They have your characteristic
delicacy and clarity.  They have spaciousness-  one can breathe in your tender atmosphere.  I am very much pleased.

 Best,
Jacob
_________________________________________
 
Jacob Kainen
 
July 3, 1991
 
Dear Carol,
 
The portrait you did of Ruth and me is remarkable in every way,
formal and psychological-- strongly patterned yet delicate in its tonalities.
It's a memorable print.  Congratulations.
 
So you are represented by Reynolds/Minor in Richmond.  It happens that they have a few things of mine-  That makes us stablemates in a sense. 

Again, congratulations and best wishes to you,
 Jacob  

"ARTISTS AND THEIR WORKPLACES'
Carol Harrison Fine Art Photographer
Crowell & Moring 1984

Ms. Harrison's works are in the permanent collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art as well as in the collections of business concerns and private collectors here and in Europe.  She is a specialist in portraiture.

While Crowell & Moring was one of the first of the major Washington law firms to develop a permanent art collection, Ms. Harrison's one-person special exhibition is the firm's first.  The theme, "Artists and Their Workplaces,"  was chosen in large part to signify Crowell & Moring's tradition of bringing art into its workplace and the expansion of that tradition by this first one-person show. 

The artists pictured are: Rockne Krebs (sculptor), Sam Gilliam (painter), George Hemphill (photography collector), Emery King (pianist), and Roy Godson (author) among others.

Sam Gilliam, painter, and Rockne Krebs, sculptor

Clark, Painter

Friday, September 27, 1985 N.Y.C

Dear Carol,

Thanks so much for the Fab pictures you took of me.  
They are the Best pictures I have ever seen of myself.
The Picture of me on Canal Street is un real.  It's like out of a movie, 
with all the people in the background from Central Casting.  
There are so many things going on the Background.  It's really amazing.
I thought that you really caught me the way that I am when I am alone which is most of the time.  many many thanks ! 

What's happening with you?
As Ever,
Clark

ARTS, The Washington Post, 1984
Harrison's Photo Portraits
by Paul Richard

On view at the Martin Gallery, 3243 P St., NW are Carol Harrison's handsome, unpretentious photographic portraits of painters, sculptors and dealers.  Those thoroughly familiar with the art world of this city will have much fun with this
show.

Here is Washington's Sam Gilliam emerging out of blackness as rich
as that which fills his rich abstract paintings;  here is landscape painter
William Dunlap cutting flowers in his garden; here is Kevin MacDonald posed in light as soft as he draws.  Here are Caroline Huber and George Hemphill of the Middendorf  Gallery -  she looks like an angel,  he like a dark-bearded Salvadoran guerrilla about to spirit her away.

Paul Richard, Writer

George Hemphill, Caroline Huber and Chris Middendorf at The Middendorf Gallery

Joe Mills, Photographer

"I was well photographed ... Joe"
March, 2007



A Washington metropolitan gallery owner wrote:
"I LOVE this image.  I do not know Joe, but the image makes him look so intense, contemplative and somehow musical.  I wonder if he is a musician?  
Zoe"
March, 2007

Lou Stovall, Artist

Love triumphs;
Art, then…
is the jewel of thought. 

Lou Stovall, 1/1/2000

Mary Del Popolo, Painter

Keith Morrison, Painter

Ralph Gibson, Photographer

Ben Forgey, Writer

William F. Stapp, Photography Curator and Historian

William F. Stapp:

In his diaries Edward Weston constantly talked about photographing "The Thing Itself,' which is what I think was his way of describing a good photograph's unique power to capture and evoke what I call 'resonance' - those non-verbal, totally visceral responses to the image that make that image seem both extremely significant and personal to the viewer, that make it 'speak to us.'

Most portraits are actually just renderings of human facades: basically detailed topological maps of the masks we tend to adopt in guarded moments.  
Good portraits somehow break through the facade- but there is not consistent recipe for accomplishing that: Avedon's portraits, which were taken according to a very formal, protocol, often do it, but so do Julia Margaret Cameron's best portraits, especially those of her family, which often seem very spontaneous and formal (especially by 19th century standards).  Yours do as well, particularly those of people you are (or feel close) to, or with whom you feel an intuitive sympathy even if you do not know them well.

In a sense there is a chemical reaction involved, and I mean that sense of 'having good chemistry' with somebody- it enables something to happen that penetrates the mask, maybe even strips it away, and allows this two-way, non-verbal dialog between the portrait's subject (or rather his or her image) and the person looking at the photograph that is what good portraiture is really all about.

You, Carol, are the agent of this happening - there is a quality in you that encourages it, and it is a special gift.

I think it may well be that the definition of what constitutes a really good portrait is that it does show 'the person differently than they present themselves in life'
I would just add 'despite themselves.'  It is the photographer who somehow works that magic that makes that happen."
May 9, 2007

Hi Carol,
 
Jim Mulvihill from the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston here. 
Our associate curator Valerie Cassel Oliver directed me to the images of Sam on your website and they are indeed spectacular.
 
You are very gracious for allowing us to use them.  

Thanks for your help.
 
Best,
 
Jim
James J. Mulvihill
Communications & Marketing Associate
Contemporary Arts Museum  Houston
7 Nov 2006

Sam Gilliam, 14th and U Street Studio, Washington, D.C.

William Eggleston and William Christenberry, The Corcoran Gallery of Art

To:  William Eggleston
       Winston Eggleston
 
9/4/09
 
Dear Bill and Winston,
 
At the Corcoran opening of 'Democratic Camera..,' Washington Photographer
Carol Harrison made this really fine photograph of the two Bill's that has all of the earmarks of an Art World classic.
 
What I propose (I'm speaking here as an Ogden Museum board member...)
is that ... The Eggleston, Christenberry, and Carol Harrison archives will each keep one photograph and that The Ogden Museum of Southern Art keeps the other two-  one for their Gala and one for their permanent collection.
 
All my best, 
Bill Dunlap

John Grisham, Charlottesville, VA, 2016

Jeff Meizlik, sculptor, Henry Schoebel, abstract painter, Carol Harrison, self-portrait with cable release

Profiles: Portraits of the Art Faculty
Department of Art, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. 
Acknowledgements 
"A very special acknowledgment goes to Carol Harrison for her sensitivity and perception, 
which are clearly evident in her photographs.  
Her dedication to this project has enhanced the quality  of the catalogue far beyond our original  expectations."  
Vicki C. Wright, Acting Director