Jeanne Harris was born on March 9, 1919. She earned her bachelor's degree in Romance languages from Sweet Briar College in Virginia. After this she moved to New York City where she worked in the lending collections department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Harris then decided to pursue a master's degree in Oriental art at Columbia University, from which she later graduated. Her next job was in an Oriental gallery on 57th Street in New York City. Here she met Laurence Sickman, who was then the curator of Oriental art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. He offered her a job at the Museum and in 1949 Harris relocated to Kansas City. She began as the assistant to the curator of Oriental art and was named assistant curator of Oriental art eight years later. Harris retired from the Museum in December 1987, after thirty-eight years of service. She died at the age of seventy-seven in April 1996.
From the description of Jeanne Harris papers, 1947-1987. (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art). WorldCat record id: 499190346
