As the first Art Superintendent in Malaya, Peter Harris (1923-2009) scoured the length and breadth of the country – Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Johor, Perak and Penang. It was 1951, and art supplies were unheard of in a country which had not yet achieved Independence. It was a good way to get to know the country and picked up speaking Bahasa. During these sojourn, Peter Harris would loll in the kopitiam and quietly sketched the common people – half-naked men resting in between laborious work, pretty damsels out in town, mothers with their babies. Sometimes, he would walk around the kampung and sketch them at work and at play. Peter Harris loved these figure sketches with his pastel pencils, each ‘portrait’ done in two to three minutes. The painted were generally warm and friendly, but it was the honesty and rapport that he cherished most. An absence of ‘isms’ in art, and a ‘return to roots’ kind of narration long before the 1971 National Policy stressing on akar umbi. Sometimes, he relished the local food and his favourite were Hokkien Mee and prawn curry. Some of his works were tied to series like the surrealist bent of his William Blake-inspired watercolours, or his series on Tanjung Bidara in Malacca or that of the Blind Poet cache. Sometimes, he would paint the places like cluttered and ramshackled stilt houses, and Mount Kinabalu. Back at home, Peter Harris also painted in oil, on more serious subjects. He had served as a wireless mechanic in British Air Force in Bombay and Quetta (1942-1945) but there were scarce extant drawings during this time. He also had a stint teaching in Sabah in Gaya College between 1962-1967. There, he also taught children suffering from leprosy. All these came from his art tutelage at the England College of Art (1939-1942). After that, he lectured on Art at the Swindon College of Art (1946-1947). But Peter Harris was best remembered for his setting up of the Wednesday Art Group in Kuala Lumpur in 1952, which had a lasting impact in creating a motley crew of artist luminaries like Patrick Ng Kah Onn, Cheong Lai-tong, Nirmala Dutt Shanmughalingam and Wong Siew Inn. Besides being a pioneering art educationist, Peter Harris was also a founding member of the National Art Gallery (NAG) and the Arts Council of Malaysia, and he was accorded the first Retrospective by the NAG, in 1960. In 1963, he was awarded the MBE by the British Queen for his vast contributions in the colonies. He returned to Britain in 1968 and continued teaching at the Sheldon School Chippenham (1976-1988). Senior-artist Yeoh Jin Leng sought out Peter Harris in his Malmesbury abode and got the National Art Gallery to sponsor his comeback in the major exhibition, Wednesday Art Group Then & Now,  at GaleriWan, Kuala Lumpur, in 1996. It was a huge success, and the centrepieces included his portrait of Samat, the partner of Frank Sullivan in Samat Art Gallery, and his ‘William Blake-tinged’ paintings. The next year, GaleriWan hosted his Retrospective. The Art Gallery Penang also hosted several solo exhibitions with accompanying catalogues of his works including his Memorial exhibition. Peter Harris believed in giving a free rein to the artistic spirit. On his teaching, he said: “I only taught them the method, not the style. I can't tell them what to paint, or how to paint it.”