Born in Bristol, England, Peter Harris (1923-2009) played an important part in Malaysian art history as  a pioneer of early art education. Educated at the West of England Art Academy in 1939, the artist-educator moved to the Federation of Malaya in 1951 to teach art at local schools as the first art superintendent of the country. The following year, he founded the Wednesday Art Group (WAG) to encourage free expression and ideas in creative painting. Members of WAG included several acclaimed Malaysian artists, including Patrick Ng Kah Onn, Syed Ahmad Jamal, Dzulkifli Buyong, Cheong Lai Tong and Dr Jolly Koh. He left Malaya in 1960 and the National Art Gallery accorded him its first retrospective exhibition. In 1962, he was invited back to the country to oversee art education in Sabah and remained in service for five years, before returning to England in 1967. His works have been inducted into the permanent collections of the Singapore Art Museum and the National Art Gallery Malaysia. Harris returned to Malaysia in 1996 for an exhibition honouring the Wednesday Art Group, themed Then and Now at the now defunct Galeriwan in Kuala Lumpur.