Myrna Harrison: Exhibition & Sale

Sedona Arts Center and Sedona Heritage Museum present Myrna Harrison: Exhibition & Sale opening September 6, 2024, at both organizations. The exhibition features more than thirty artworks that span the artist’s career—-color-saturated abstract and desert landscapes that evoke the vivid and dynamic terrain of the West. From jagged mountains and deep canyons to dusty roads and expansive skies, Harrison’s artworks are executed with traditional and crayon watercolors often outlined with Japanese sumi ink.

Born in 1932 in Hollywood, California, Harrison has been enveloped in the arts since childhood. Her father was an animator and her mother was a hat designer. She studied in New York under abstract painters Morris Davidson and Jack Tworkov and finally at the renowned Hans Hoffman School of Fine Art in New York City and Provincetown in Massachusetts, where she honed her style under the guidance of Hoffman, one of the most prolific figures in postwar American art. In 1959 she received a BA (magna cum laude with honors in english) and in 1960 an MA (english) from New York University (NYU). At NYU she studied with Philip Guston, a founding figure of the New York School. She showed in numerous juried and invitational group shows in the 1950s, including the International Watercolor Biennial at the Brooklyn Museum. In 1960, Harrison returned to California where she taught and exhibited throughout northern California for the next twenty years. In 1980, she moved to Arizona to become President of Rio Salado Community College (1980–85), Gateway Community College, (1985–88) and Phoenix College (1988–93). She retired in 1993 and moved to Wickenburg. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including solo exhibitions at Sedona’s James Ratliff Gallery, Cortland Jessup Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts and group shows in the United States, Europe, and Japan.