Robert Harris CMG RCA was a Welsh-born Canadian painter, most noted for his portrait of the Fathers of Confederation.

Born in Caerhun, Conwy, Wales, he came to Prince Edward Island via Liverpool with his family as a youth. In 1873, he studied art in Boston, in 1877 attended London's Slade School of Art, and later that same year, studied in Paris with Léon Bonnat.

In 1880, he was commissioned to sketch the principal parties in the Donnelley's murder trial for the Toronto Globe. He returned to study in Paris with Bonnat again in 1881. In 1882, he shared a studio with American painter A. B. Reinhardt at Ecouen, 17 miles from Paris. In 1883, he exhibited in the Paris Salon. While abroad, he may have learned of Impressionism, but on his return to Canada, in 1883, he was commissioned by the Dominion Government to paint a record of the 1864 Quebec Conference. The painting was later known by the popular title The Fathers of Confederation. Afterwards, he settled in Montreal, and began painting in an academic style the social and political elite in Toronto and Montreal.

In 1886, his painting of A Meeting of the School Trustees, of a woman teacher converting a gathering of male trustees to her point of view, was the sensation of the 1886 Royal Canadian Academy show. The Fathers of Confederation, early in his career, established his reputation as one of the most distinguished portrait painters in Canada. Between 1889 and 1896, he painted over 55 commissioned portraits superior to other portraits being done at the time. In 1903, he painted his portrait of the Countess of Minto. In the late 1900s, Harris returned to painting in an Impressionist-influenced mode after purchasing the first book in English on the subject, The French Impressionists (1860–1900) by Camille Mauclair. (His copy of the book is in the Confederation Centre Art Gallery). Over the next eight years, he began to incorporate small touches of vibrant colour and the fluid brushwork of the Impressionists, while still maintaining the formal characteristics of academic portraiture.

He was a founding member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1880 (RCA) and elected president of the RCA in 1893. In 1902, he was created a C.M.G., the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, a British order of chivalry awarded to men and women who hold high office or who render extraordinary or important non-military service in a foreign country, which can also be conferred for important or loyal service in relation to foreign and Commonwealth affairs. As president of the RCA in 1904, he helped spearhead the organization and installation of the Canadian exhibition at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. At the exposition, he received the Commemorative Diploma and Gold Medal of Honour for Distinguished Service in Art.

An important collection of his works is housed at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, P.E.I.. His painting, A Meeting of the School Trustees, illustrating a confrontation between PEI teacher Kate Henderson and her school's trustees, appeared on a Canadian stamp in 1980 and was dramatized by a Heritage Minutes.

He married Elizabeth (Bessie) Putnam in 1885 but the couple had no children. He was the brother of the architect William Critchlow Harris and took an active interest in the artwork of his cousin Kathleen Morris.

In 1965, the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown accepted the Robert Harris Collection and Archives, which includes Harris's 1883 preparatory sketches for his painting of the Fathers of Confederation, from the Robert Harris Trust. This acquisition of drawings, paintings, sketchbooks, letters and memorabilia numbered nearly 9,000 items. In 1986–1987, the exhibition Robert Harris, 1849-1919, was circulated in Wales by the National Museum of Wales. The first language of the catalogue was Welsh, the second English.