[3] He quit school and hitchhiked to New York City to become a painter[4] in the manner of Pollock, Kline or de Kooning.

In 1957, he was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Nancy, but it was not long before he returned to the United States [4] He finished his undergraduate degree at the University of Maine.

[2] Believing the museum should respond to the social upheaval caused by race riots in the city, he opened a food distribution center in one of the galleries and increased the number of shows by African American artists held there.

Barnett Newman's piece, 3-tons of Cor-Ten steel shaped like an inverted obelisk balanced on the point of a pyramid, was placed on a corner between the museum and the National Mall with a view of the Washington Monument.

[11] After nine months as director, Harithas wore out his welcome at the Corcoran and went back to New York, where he taught at Hunter College and the School of Visual Arts.

He later said some of best work was done there: one-person shows of Nam June Paik, Joan Mitchell, Norman Bluhm, Marilyn Minter, and Hermann Nitsch, and activist programs featuring Daniel Berrigan and Leonard Crow Dog.

In 1973, the Everson hosted a month-long, solo exhibition featuring the work of video artist Frank Gillette.

Part of Harithas’ endeavor to make the museum a pioneer institution for the medium, the show was the first to devote all four upper galleries to a video artist.

During the Attica riots, he taught classes at Auburn Correctional Facility, mentoring artists such as Juan Alberto Cruz.

Harithas believed a prison fine arts program could offer a "creative framework within which the student can explore his visual and intellectual relationship to the ‘inside’ as well as the ‘outside’ and dispel or deal with irrational or unaccountable fantasies.

[17] But he saw it as a challenge that also fulfilled a need to escape New York City's sphere of influence and to think of art “as a fundamental activity rather than a geopolitical hustle.”[1] During his tenure at the CAMH (1974–1978), the museum functioned almost as an alternative space, in part because it could little afford to do much else.

[19] Texas artists receiving solo shows, frequently their first in the context of a museum, included: Dick Wray, James Surls, Dorothy Hood, Luis Jimenez, Terry Allen, John Alexander, and Mel Casas.

The show Dále Gas, organized by artist and CAMH curator Santos Martinez Jr. at Harithas' request, was the first major museum exhibition of Chicano art in Texas.

[20] In February 1976, Harithas presented transplanted Texan Julian Schnabel's first solo show in the CAMH's Lower Gallery.

[21] In June of that year, a flash flood filled the lower level with nine feet of water, damaging gallery and office spaces, and destroying artwork on display and in storage.

[22] Harithas and artist John Alexander donned scuba gear in an attempt to salvage artwork, but dozens of paintings, sculptures, and artifacts were irreparably damaged.

A retrospective of sculptor Sal Scarpitta's work filled the upper gallery with large, wrapped, resin-soaked canvases and "sleds," detailed reproductions of race cars and the recreation of a 1940s Italian tank.

Light sculptor Dale Eldred installed his Solar Sculpture in the upper gallery and on the museum's corrugated metal exterior.

(The museum closed for a month while 4,000 120-ft. long steel filaments painted in fluorescent colors were hung from the gallery's ceiling and an 8,000 ft. by 20 ft. mylar banner was attached to the facade.

)[1] In October 1977, Harithas brought in multidisciplinary artist Antoni Miralda, whose installations, performances, and happenings focused on food: the culture, politics, and ritual of what we eat.

The Kilgore Rangerettes drill team were brought in for opening night to perform their high-kicks routine and carry trays of rainbow-hued bread loaves from the CAMH's lower level to a 175-ft. long row of benches in the main gallery.

[3] The Breadline debacle combined with dwindling funds and lack of faith in Harithas' leadership led the board to hire a business manager with tacit power over the director at a salary equal to his.

[24] The pair would be the Houston art scene's power couple for decades to come, devoting themselves to local and regional artists as well as those working with politically- and socially-engaged content.

[25] As with all of Jim and Ann Harithas' venues, the Art Car Museum fearlessly presented overtly political work.

[26] During its 20 years of operation, the Station Museum mounted shows that dealt with the concerns of Palestinians, Iraqis, the LGBTQ community, people of color, Indigenous Americans and others who question "society’s morality and ethics.”[27] Most Station Museum shows took a strong political stand, which Harithas sought to merge with imagery that went beyond mere illustration.

In June 2017, a group of protestors gathered outside the museum to protest an exhibition of Andres Serrano staged "torture" photographs.

[30] Exhibitions at the Five Points largely involve art cars, but the museum has hosted work by some of Harithas' favorite activist artists, including Mel Chin and Clark V. Fox.