William Laurel Harris

William Laurel Harris (February 18, 1870 – September 24, 1924) was an American muralist, educator, editor, and arts organizer.

Harris was a fanatic of the Municipal Art Society (of which he was president in 1912), the Architectural League of New York (of which he was vice president), The National Mural Painters Society, and The Fine Arts Federation; he as well as founded the Art Centre gone Katherine Dreier. He painted murals, designed the decorative elements, and continued the pretend of John LaFarge at the Church of Saint Paul the Apostle (also known as the Paulist Fathers Church) on 59th Street and 9th Avenue, New York City. The church was called "an experiment in democracy in American art" by the order's founder, Isaac Thomas Hecker.^{[citation needed]} Other contributors to its decoration add together Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Stanford White, Frederick William MacMonnies, and Bela Pratt.

Harris labored upon this project for 15 years, from 1898 to 1913 until in flames by the Paulists in what appears to have been a personal dispute. A disastrous "cleaning" in 1958 removed fourteen of Harris's Saints upon side chapel walls, much of Harris's unique ornamentation, and his color treatment. A renovation in the 1990s did not restructure any of Harris's decorative painting, but did preserve many of his most important works, including a nativity scene, the Virgin Mary Enthroned, St. Patrick's and St. Catherine's altars, "The Precious Blood", a carved and painted frieze featuring lambs, a memorial to deceased Paulists, and a 60-foot-wide (18 m) crucifixion.