is in the Confederation Centre Art Gallery). Over the next eight years, he began to incorporate small touches of vibrant colour and the fluid brushwork of the Impressionists, while still maintaining the formal characteristics of academic portraiture. Harris taught at the Ontario School of Art (1879-1881) and at the Art Association of Montreal in the 1880s, and like Brymner, as a teacher, Harris followed an academic curriculum and encouraged many of his students, like George Agnew Reid and Mary Alexandra Bell Eastlake, to pursue further studies in Europe and to develop a distinctively Canadian art. An important collection of his works is housed at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, P.E.I.. In 1965, the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown accepted the Robert Harris Collection and Archives, which includes Harris's 1883 preparatory sketches for his painting of the Fathers of Confederation, from the Robert Harris Trust. This acquisition of drawings, paintings, sketchbooks, letters and memorabilia numbered nearly 9,000 items. His painting, A Meeting of the School Trustees appeared on a Canadian stamp in 1980 and was dramatized by television on Heritage Minutes. In 1986–1987, the exhibition Robert Harris, 1849-1919, was circulated in Wales by the National Museum of Wales. The first language of the catalogue was Welsh, the second English. Selected works Honours He was a founding member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1880 (RCA) and elected president of the RCA in 1893. In 1902, he was created a C.M.G., the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, a British order of chivalry awarded to men and women who hold high office or who render extraordinary or important non-military service in a foreign country, which can also be conferred for important or loyal service in relation to foreign and Commonwealth affairs. As president of the RCA in 1904, he helped spearhead the organization and installation of the Canadian exhibition at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. At the exposition, he received the Commemorative Diploma and Gold Medal of Honour for Distinguished Service in Art. Personal life He married Elizabeth (Bessie) Putnam in 1885 but the couple had no children. He was the brother of the architect William Critchlow Harris and took an active interest in the artwork of his cousin Kathleen Morris. References Bibliography Moncrieff Williamson, Robert Harris: An Unconventional Biography, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1973. External links Robert Harris – Confederation Painter Pictures in the