Joseph Harry Anderson was born August 11, 1906 in Chicago, Illinois. Along with a sister and two brothers, Harry was an outstanding student throughout grammar and high school, excelling with mathematics in particular. Brother Clarence, was an engineer, designing hydro turbines for the government. Sister Josephine would serve as Treasurer for the Denver School System, and brother William was an officer for the Internal Revenue Service who designed and implemented computerized tax systems for foreign governments. Naturally, when Harry enrolled at the University of Illinois in I925, it was to study math. Before entering college, Anderson had worked for a large stationery store in Chicago. Although he was hired as a stock boy, through a series of circumstances, he became the store’s display sign painter (the man who was hired for this purpose could not meet his deadlines, so Anderson asked the manager if he could complete the job). His work was found to be more than adequate and he was given a studio on the store’s fourth floor. He became the permanent sign painter, producing all of the store’s signage. While registering for his sophomore year at the University of Illinois, Harry was forced to choose an elective in order to fulfill his curriculum requirements. He wanted to select an easy course to lighten the load of his difficult math classes. His choice was a course in still life painting. This elective would forever change his life. As he struggled through the first two semesters of his painting class, a couple of thoughts occurred to him. The career prospects for a mathematician seemed dubious, and that he truly enjoyed painting pictures. By the end of his second semester, Harry’s paintings were beginning to show more ability than the work of his fellow art students. It was about this time that his painting teacher approached him with a direct question. "Have you ever considered art as a profession?" His instructor was an alumnus of the Syracuse School of Art and suggested that Anderson enroll there. In the fall of 1927, he began attending classes at Syracuse as a full-fledged art student.