Craig Harbison

HADLEY – Craig Stephen Harbison age 74, died unexpectedly on Thursday May 17, 2018 in his home in Hadley. The cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Craig was born in Baltimore, Maryland on April 19, 1944, the son of the late Dale and Lucile Meeks Harbison.  He grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  He received his Bachelors degree in Art History in 1966 from Oberlin College, where he studied under Wolfgang Stechow, and his PhD from Princeton University in 1971, where he studied with Erwin Panofsky, specializing in 15th and 16th-century Dutch and Flemish painting. In 1966 he married Sherrill Rood of Burlington, Vermont.  They were divorced in 2003.

Craig's teaching career began at the University of California, Davis, in 1970. Then from 1972-74 he taught at Oberlin College, his alma mater, before moving to Amherst in 1974. He taught in the Art History Department at the University of Massachusetts until he retired in 2003. Craig was a gifted and popular teacher of art history.  His books include Jan van Eyck, The Play of Realism (1991) and The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art in its Historical Context (1995).

After his retirement he came out as a gay man and spent the next 15 years growing into himself.  He had a deep life-long passion for and encyclopedic knowledge of live and recorded opera.  He was a chef, an artist and photographer, and an avid reader.  He had a unique and discerning aesthetic eye and curated his home as one would a museum.  He had a passion for beauty and a love of nature.  He was a generous and thoughtful friend, an unconditionally loving father and proud grandfather. 

He is survived by his brother, Robert Harbison of London, England, his former wife, Sherrill Rood Harbison of Amherst, MA, his two children, Hanne Harbison of Philadelphia, PA and Colin Harbison of Fairfax, VA, and his three grandsons, Amon Harbison Koopman and Aidan and Nathan Harbison.

Memorial gifts can be sent to the Human Rights Campaign, the Matthew Shepard Foundation or the New England Peace Pagoda. A memorial service will be held at the New England Peace Pagoda in Leverett, MA on June 30th, 2018 at 1:00 PM.

Memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

To sign a Guest Book, express condolences, share memories and read other obituaries, go to legacy.com/obituaries/gazettenet.