William Claude Harper
Image:'Ghost Oracle', gold, enamel, silver and pearls pendant brooch by William Harper, 1978, Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|right|250px|'Ghost Oracle', gold, enamel, silver and pearls pendant brooch by William Harper, 1978, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
William C. Harper is an NYC based American jewelry artist known for studio craft jewelry. Harper, an expert in the cloisonné technique working in enamelled glass, creates intricate pieces that combine enamel designs with gold, wood, and a variety of other materials, both valuable and ordinary. Instead of using cloisonné in the traditional way to separate areas of color, Harper utilizes silver and gold wires as a form of drawing, creating abstract linear patterns within the enamel. His work often explores the contrast between different elements, such as the beautiful and the everyday, the luxurious and the simple, and the public and the personal.
Biography
Born in Bucyrus, Ohio, in 1944. He received a BS in 1966 and an MS in education in 1967, both from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He also studied advanced enameling techniques at the Cleveland Institute of Art.Harper began his career as an abstract painter but in the early 1960s switched to enameling. Many of his creations relate to mythology and ritual objects, and his work was included in the exhibition One of a Kind: The Studio Craft Movement at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, December 22, 2006 – September 3, 2007.
He should not be confused with the Afro-American sculptor and painter William A. Harper or the American painter William St. John Harper.