KEYES

William Harrington

Born in Chicago, William C. Harrington’s artistic gifts were evident in early in life. During high school his natural curiosity and aptitude for drawing forged a lifelong commitment in the young artist. There, he was exposed to art of The Chicago Imagists whose works favored individualism and aspects of surrealism, political satire, and symbolism.

William Harrington was the first person in his family to make art of any kind. He studied in the sculpture department at The University of Illinois and did graduate work at The University of Hartford. Harrington spent summers assisting sculptor George Rickey and helped fabricate his "useless machines." After graduating with an MFA in sculpture in 1965, Harrington was drafted into the US Army and entered Officers Candidate School. Upon completing his training and as a second lieutenant, he was assigned to army logistics in Worms, Germany. Then Vietnam for two years.

The Soldier/Artist

William Harrington was the leader of Vietnam Combat Artists Team VII from 1967 to 1969, one of six artists assigned to create paintings about the war, often from the front lines. These young artists accompanied infantry patrols on reconnaissance missions, traversing rice paddies, swamps, and jungles. Equipped with sketchbooks, paints, watercolors, pencils, and Eastman Kodak 127 Brownie Instamatics, they were free to roam the war zone. They were granted significant artistic freedom with two main instructions: to be expressive and to stay busy. The tradition of combat artists dates back in history, and it has always been a daring endeavor due to the daunting nature of their task.
The American artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910) served as a "special artist" during the Civil War, living alongside soldiers and creating artworks as a form of "news correspondence."
During World War II, British artists such as Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, and Stanley Spencer had similar roles.
Even in more recent conflicts, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. combat artists have adhered to the motto: “Go to war, do art.”
Unique among his peers, William Harrington’s depictions of the Vietnam War did not focus on combat or camaraderie. Instead, his work transcended the visible world by expressing a wide range of emotions—grief, fear, and rage—that he processed during and long after the war. Navigating between dissonance and theatricality, his art could be contentious, playful, or surreal, but his passion—both in wartime and beyond—was unmistakable.
After Vietnam, he circled back to Germany, returning to logistics until his honorable discharge was secured. Before going stateside, William and his wife Diana traveled through Spain, Italy and other parts of Europe absorbing the culture, architecture and visual art.
Although William Harrington would suffer emotionally after Vietnam, it is clear that he was one of the great successes of the U.S. Combat Artist Team. Continuing his studio practice until his death in 2020, Harrington amassed a profound body of work often massive in scale, that included assemblage, metal and wood sculpture, painting - frequently in relief - and collage. In a synthesis of craftsmanship, humor, cultural awareness and provocation, William Harrington’s exuberance and tenacity have prevailed.

The Artist
While Harrington’s paintings and sculptures sometimes comprise of caustic cracks about Kissinger, Nixon, Trump, and an entire crop of "nitwits," these visual concoctions read more like phantasmagorias of loss and skepticism, hauled up from a reservoir of disillusionment. Harrington, like Jackson Pollock, hoards his pain. But unlike Pollock, he modulates his inner life sufficiently to remain focused and relevant, while the latter drove off the road a few miles from where I am writing now, decapitated by a tree. Harrington headbutts his way through work ranging from assembled junkyard scrap, wooden totems, and wall-hangings (much of this work is undated). His artifacts often depict failed American foreign policy, the cruel fiascos of my lifetime, but their dominion lies elsewhere. Harrington remains engrossed by unimaginable grief and anger as he applies his lens to another world and place: redemption. Harrington copes with significant loss, driven by a need to relieve his pain and grasp at a command over his fears and isolation from society. He writes that he intends to "live deliberately."

Harrington taught art in the 1970s and '80s: at Indiana State University and later at Iowa State. Later, he settled in Holliston, Massachusetts, where he worked for the next thirty years until his death. Working until his very last days, Harrington was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018 and died on July 19, 2020, at home with his wife Diana by his side. Harrington rarely exhibited his artwork aside from an occasional show in a local gallery and left behind five decades of work with numerous notes and writings on art.