Harry I Naar was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1946. He received his BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts) and was a fellowship and teaching assistant at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where he received his MFA. He also studied in Paris, France, where he met frequently with the renowned painter Jean Helion.

From 1980 to 2018, Naar was a professor of Fine Arts at Rider University, where he also served as director of the University’s art gallery and curator of the University’s art collection. Along with curating several hundred shows, Naar has conducted interviews and written and published catalogues on numerous artists.

In 2005, Naar received a grant in printmaking from the Rutgers Center for innovative Print and Paper (Brodsky Center for innovative Editions). In 2009 he was one of 30 artists selected by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, for inclusion in the ”Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts.” The Academy also awarded him the Hassam, Speicher, Betts and Symons Fund Purchase Award.

Naar’s work has been on view in numerous one-person and group exhibitions throughout the country, among them: the Corcoran Gallery of Art; the Canton Art Institute, Ohio; the High Museum of Art; the Boca Raton Museum of Art; the USSR Artist’s Union Gallery, Moscow, The New Jersey State Museum. His work is included in numerous private and public collections, including the American Council on Education, Washington, DC; the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; the Lyme Academy College of Art, Connecticut; the Morris Museum of Arts and Sciences, Morristown, New Jersey; the Newark Museum of Art, New Jersey; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair New Jersey; the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick New Jersey; the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Museum, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York.

He is also listed in Who’s Who in American Art.

He currently resides in Seattle, WA with his wife, Barbara.