Claude Harrison was a painter in oils, tempera, and watercolor, born in Lancashire, England. He was married to the artist Audrey Johnson in 1947, their son being the potter Tobias Harrison. He was educated at Preston College of Art, 1939–41, Liverpool College of Art, 1941–2, then after Royal Air Force service in India, Burma and China, at Royal College of Art, 1947–50. Harrison was a painter of murals, portraits, "conversation pieces," and imaginative figure compositions, including harlequin-type and masked figures, using a delicate palette. He showed with Royal Society of Portrait Painters, of which he was an honorary member, the Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Society of British Artists, and elsewhere in mixed exhibitions, and he also had numerous solo shows. Harrison published The Portrait Painters’ Handbook, 1968, and The Book of Tobit, 1969. Harris Art Gallery in Preston and galleries in Kendal and Lancaster hold his work, as do the National Galleries of Scotland and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut. Text source: Artists in Britain Since 1945 by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)