Josephine Harris

Harris was born on 16 February 1931. Her father (Major Percy Harris) was a British Army officer and the family moved a lot. She was educated mainly by governesses, but she also attended the York School of Art while they lived in the city.[2] After the end of the Second World War, the family settled in Saltash, Cornwall, and she attended Moorfield School for Girls, an independent school in Plymouth, from 1946 to 1948.[3]

1948, she enrolled at the Plymouth College of Art, where she learnt a careful observation of detail and skilful drawing under William Mann.[2][3] She then worked at the Plymouth City Art Gallery, where she was involved in educating children about its collections and loaning pictures to local schools.[2] In 1958, she moved to London where she unsuccessfully applied to the Royal College of Art.[3] Instead, she gained employment as secretary and personal assistant to the Keeper of the Schools at the Royal Academy of Arts; first Sir Henry Rushbury and then his successor Peter Greenham.[2][3] She continued painting, becoming a member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1967 and exhibiting her work with the Royal Academy.[2]

In 1969, Harris attended a glass decorating class by Peter Dreiser at Morley College.[2] She left her job at the Royal Academy to set up a studio in Barnes, London, specialising in glass engraving.[2][3] She worked with a diamond drill on vessels and larger architectural pieces, mostly to commission.[2] These included memorial doors at St Mary's Church, Barnes, screen panels commemorating the Punjab Frontier Force in St Luke's Church, Chelsea, and a bowel celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Garden Museum.[2] She was a founding member of the Guild of Glass Engravers in 1975, and became a "brother" of the Art Workers' Guild in 1981.[2][3] She was also a member of the New English Art Club.[4] She was elected Master of the Art Workers' Guild for 1997.[3]

Harris never married nor had any children.[3] She had an accident at home in 1986, and spent a long period in a convalescent home in Hartley, Plymouth.[4] In 1996, she had brain cyst removed.[3]

Harris died on 28 September 2020, aged 89, having become frail in later life.[3]