Benjamin Harris was a pioneer in airbrush art in popular media, and along with his wife Georgette became a big proponent of the Art Deco style of the 1930s. While they are not directly related in style to many of the ragtime era cover artists in this collection, their work is both a follow-up to and evolution of those who came before them in creating memorable sheet music art. Note that some websites erroneously reference to them as African American artists, but they were, in fact, born Caucasian, and showed as such in all relevant records.

Ben was born in Albany, Georgia, to plumbing contractor and handyman Edward Payne Harris and his wife Eva Lillian Joiner. Edward was reportedly a not-too-distant relative of famous Uncle Remus author Joel Chandler Harris, but on the mother's side of the author, as he was born Joel Chandler Neal and his mother was Mary Ann Harris. Ben's siblings included Edna Earle (1/29/1898), Edward Payne, Jr. (12/13/1901), William Joel (12/4/1902-5/1/1904), Louis (1909) and Frances W. (1914). The 1900 enumeration showed the Harris family in Albany, but by 1908 they had moved to Pensacola, Florida, where they were shown in the 1910 census with the elder Edward working as a construction foreman. Both Louis and Frances were born in Florida, but Louis, like William before him, did not make it through to adolescence. By the mid-1910s the family was back in Albany, where Edward was seen working as a plumbing inspector for the 1920 enumeration.

Georgette Oberdorfer was born in New York City two years before Ben to first generation New York natives, druggist Johann George Oberdorfer and his wife Lillian Ammann. Lillian died in late May of 1904, and soon thereafter Georgette was sent to live with her German immigrant maternal grandparents, Charles and Elizabeth Ammann in Yonkers, New York, where she spent her youth. Her father still ran his drug store on 8th Avenue in Harlem for many years into the 1920s, but their relationship during that time is unknown. Georgette showed early promise as an artist, and was trained in graphic arts during the early to mid-1920s.

By 1930 both Ben and Georgette were working as freelance commercial artists for some New York firms, with Ben engaging in sheet music covers from early in the decade. The 1930 census showed Ben living now in New Rochelle with his older brother Edward who was a broker, and working as a standard engraving artist. By this time he had received training in architecture, and practiced professional photography as well. At some point he also obtained a pilot's license. Georgette, who had graduated in the early 1920s from Skidmore College, had been working for New York area newspapers as both a journalist and cartoonist, but soon fell into the graphic arts sector of publishing. Having taken to the growing medium of airbrushing, she was soon teaching at the College of New Rochelle, and would eventually be hired as an art director for the Warner Brothers' music publishing division after their music catalog acquisitions made viable by the addition of sound in films. In 1930 Georgette was lodging with the family of divorcée Ruth C. Harris, the last name likely not a coincidence, but the direct relationship to Ben not readily discerned.

An example of Harris airbrush art.

She and Ben soon met, very possibly through either the Harris relationship or at the New Rochelle college, and Georgette would move in with Ben in early 1933. They were married on November 18, 1933, in New York. Even before that time they became a formidable team of graphic artists.

Ben was good at caricatures and illustrations, and was often engaged to provide the latter for special interest newspaper stories and books. Georgette leaned more toward working with silhouettes and shadows with Art Deco themes utilizing long lines with elegant curves. As they often collaborated on images, they created the collective signature name of "Jorj" after Georgette. Ben often used it as his middle name, a tribute to his partner that also made him quite unique. As sheet music covers and other forms of art had moved away from traditional lithography into offset printing, it made for a more expedient process of getting their works into print using techniques that would be all but impossible with the use of lithographic stones. Among the more revolutionary and breathtaking tools they used was the airbrush that Georgette had been working with for some time, as it could easily create feathered edges and disappearing horizons. Although it had been around since the 1870s, the airbrush had largely been used as a photo retouching tool rather than a primary form of painting. In the 1947 the couple would publish a book on the use of airbrushing for those interested in progressing in that form.

In the world of music, although the Harrises were independent contractors, both together and separately, their biggest client appears to have been Harms music and its subsidiaries. This was significant in that they were publishing a great many show-related tunes from Broadway. Their methodology towards creating images was discussed in a 1998 New York Times article on sheet music artists, which also referenced one of the oldest remaining such individuals of that time, Sydney Leff (also in this collection).

Among the couple's more interesting projects was working for the noted firm of Newman Decor, which focused on decorating some of the better apartments of the New York area during the late 1940s. With contributions from the Harrises and other artists, they provided scores of airbrushed and watercolor paintings with which to festoon the domiciles and lend some class and an air of sophistication. They covered a number of subjects from floral arrangements to fashion and gentleman's sports. Hundreds of these works are still widely regarded and collected today through art and auction sites. Ben and Georgette also continued to flourish in the world of advertising for some time, adapting their Art Deco strengths into layouts for periodicals and print ads.

Ben ran his studio into the 1940s and, according to a couple of directories, the early 1950s. Indeed, the 1950 census, taken in New Rochelle, showed the couple both as free lance artists who owned their business. However, by that time, advertising trends had changed greatly, as had sheet music cover topics and content. It is not clear how long he and Georgette provided original images for Newman, but the modernization of the mid-1950s into the 1960s appeared to have essentially outmoded them. Ben died at the end of 1957 at the relatively young age of 53. Georgette survived him for nearly six years, passing on in the fall of 1963 at age 60. They are a great example of a power couple who shared a passion, not just with each other, but with a grateful world that still recognizes the beautiful esthetic of their revolutionary work.