Harkness, Albert (1822-1907)
Role:Dates:
Portrait Location: Library Annex
Artist: Chase, William Merritt (1849-1916)
Portrait Date: 1908
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 35 1/4
Framed Dimensions: 44 1/2
Brown Portrait Number: 96
Brown Historical Property Number: 624
Albert Harkness was born in 1822 on a farm in Mendon, Massachusetts. Because of the constant labor necessitated by farm life, his early education was scanty. As a young boy, Harkness attended the public schools in his district for only three months out of each year. However, in 1836, he received the opportunity to study at Uxbridge High School for a term, and the next year, he studied at Worcester Academy for a single term. He followed these months at school with a year's determined self-study, and as a result of his work, achieved entrance to Brown University in 1838. In 1842, he graduated from Brown as his class's valedictorian. After his graduation, Harkness tutored students privately; then in 1843, he joined the faculty at Providence High School. Two years later, he became principal of the school, a position which he occupied for eight years. In 1853, Harkness returned to school himself. He left the United States and went to Germany to study languages and literature, and received his doctorate from the University of Bonn in 1854. He traveled throughout the continent after receiving his degree, and then returned to the United States in 1855 to take up the position of Professor of Greek at Brown. He taught at Brown for thirty-seven years, taking sabbaticals to lecture and study in Europe. During the course of his academic career, he wrote several textbooks, including a highly regarded series in Latin. Harkness was dedicated to furthering Classical Studies. He and other scholars began the American Philological Association in 1869; this scholarly association is still in operation and focuses on all aspects of Greek and Latin scholarship. In 1881, Harvard's Charles Eliot Norton assembled a group of interested professors, including Harkness, and together they founded the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece, an institution which today is particularly active in the field of archaeology. Harkness retired from Brown in 1892; he died fifteen years later, in 1907. He was survived by his wife, Maria Aldrich Smith Harkness, whom he married in 1849, and their two children, Clara Frances Harkness Poland (who married William Carey Poland, a professor of classics at Brown), and Albert Granger Harkness, who, like his father and brother-in-law, taught classics as a professor at Brown.
This portrait was painted by William Merritt Chase (1849-1916). Chase was born in Indiana in 1849. He studied art at the Royal Academy in Munich for five years, then returned to the United States in 1878 and opened a studio in New York City. Chase is one of the most famous of the American Impressionists; he is also known as an accomplished teacher. Georgia O'Keefe was among his pupils. After a prolific career, Chase died in New York City in 1916. This portrait was given to Brown by Alfred Williams Anthony (Brown class of 1883) in 1908.