Les Harris Memorial

An impressive crowd of admirers, students, friends, and family turned out yesterday for Les Harris' memorial service at Clipper Mill. Harris, who passed away at his Bolton Hill home in January, taught at Park School and spent decades creating an elaborate, visionary installation of paintings and sculpture that he called the Amaranthine Museum. The speakers included Sally Harris, Les' wife of 50 years, Walters Museum director Gary Vikan, Nest magazine founder Joe Holtzman, and Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist Walter Handelsman. Holtzman, who folded Nest to pursue painting full-time, said he hopes more Baltimoreans will come to know Harris' work in the coming years. Holtzman believes Harris sprinted ahead of us with his "maximalist" art, and it may take awhile for the art world to fully appreciate his work. 

The artist may be gone, but the work lives on at the Amaranthine Museum. It's definitely worth a visit.