User:Lilyharmon

The work of an artist, when viewed by the public, should be able to speak for itself. Lily Harmon's creative genius as a painter, sculptor and printmaker do exactly this.

Born Lily Perelmutter in 1912 in New Haven, CT, Lily had a zest for life and learning. Her attitude toward painting, and toward the world, was wide open. She would not be conained, but she absored everything. After graduating from high school Lily advised her parents she was going to attend the Yale Art School, since, as she said, "I'm going to study art anyway." Her mother responded, "Painting is a nice hobby for a girl," to which Lily retorted, "It's my life work!" Lily was to go on and continue painting, sculpting and printmaking throughout her life, rubbing elbows and enjoying times with many well respected artists on the New York scene.

Loved and nurtured by her 'Baba' (grandmother), Lily grew up in a world of hard working parents who owned a clothing store at 763 Grand Avenue in New Haven, CT. As the baby in the family, Lily, her older sister Gert and brother Joe worked at the store on Saturdays when, as she says, "...we are old enough to be able to divide by four. That is how we translate the figure on the price tag to gete the wholesale price. The customers all bargain....Call your father. Call the boss. Call Mr. Perelmutter," they say when I quote a price." While the going was not easy for Lily and her family, others in New Haven suffered greatly with the onset of the Great Depression. Lily saw how her father bartered with people and, in the end, he would give in and lower his prices, sometimes considerably, so families could afford to put clothes on their and their childrens' backs. Having experienced this during her younger years would serve Lily well. She always looked out for the 'little guy' even when she was married to very wealthy men.

After high school graduation she made her way--in 1929--to Provincetown and began studying with a well respected painter, Henry Hensche. She mentioned to a friend, "I felt I was really living." In the fall of 1929 she returned to New Haven and enrolled at the Yale School of Fine Arts, which she found to be oppressive and pedantic. The following summer she set sail for Austria to study dance at the Isadora Duncan School. Not really interested in dance, but rather the adventure of travel she ran away from the school, which was "anti-Semitic" and "treated us like children". With the depression closing in she returned to New York and studied briefly at Parsons School and worked as an artist's model. It was here Lily met Peter Harnden, a dashing and handsome gentleman, with whom she eloped, loking for "escape", but found herself stuck being a housewife in Washington, D.C. while he studied diplomacy at Georgetown. They were divorced in 1932 and she again returned to New York City.

In New York again she was working and living among other artists where she achieved a productive rhythm and was accepted into prestigious competitive exhibitions including the National Gallery, The Whitney and the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts. In 1942, two paintings were accepted for the Artists for Victory exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it was here she began to attract critical attention.

The New Haven Register described the two portraits in the exhibition as having "a quality strongly reminiscent of Renoir." She was drawn to portraits, she said, "Because I really like people. I'm terribly interested in people." Many of these portraits are sensitive portrayals of mothers and children and some art writers of the day ascribed these themes to feminine painting. Lily's response to the critics was telling--"I didn't see any point in denying the fact that I was a woman. I was interested in things that women were interesed in."

The New York times, however said they perceived "evidence of a very real emerging talent...proof of originality and a developing personal style." She was only 28 years old at this time!

Lily was a major figure in the Provincetown art scene from the 1950's until her death some 40 years later. Of Provincetown, Lily once said, "A special light exudes from the water and sky. I am drunk with it, bathed with it, purified by it."

Lily married three more times, had two daughters, JoAnn and Amy, all the while painting, sculpting and printmaking, creating a large body of work, much of which now resides at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the Butler Institute of Art in Youngstown, OH, the Wichita Art Museum in Wichita, KS as well as other museums and private collections throughout the country and around the world.