Tag Archives: Lawren Harris

Lawren Harris

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This article is about the Canadian artist and member of the Group of Seven. For his artist son, see Lawren P. Harris.
Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris.JPG

Lawren Harris, April 25, 1926, photographed by M.O. Hammond
Born Lawren Stewart Harris
October 23, 1885
Brantford, Ontario, Canada
Died January 29, 1970(1970-01-29) (aged 84)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Nationality Canadian
Known for Painting
Notable work(s) North Shore, Lake Superior, 1926
Movement Group of Seven

Lawren Stewart Harris, CC (October 23, 1885 – January 29, 1970) was a Canadian painter. He was born in Brantford, Ontario and is best known as a member the Group of Seven who pioneered a distinctly Canadian painting style in the early twentieth century. A. Y. Jackson has been quoted as saying that Harris provided the stimulus for the Group of Seven. During the 1920s, Harris’s works became more abstract and simplified, especially his stark landscapes of the Canadian north and Arctic. He also stopped signing and dating his works so that people would judge his works on their own merit and not by the artist or when they were painted.

In 1969 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Early life

Lawren Stewart Harris was born on October 23, 1885 to Thomas Morgan Harris and Anna J. Stewart (daughter of pastor William Boyd Stewart) in Brantford, Ontario into a wealthy family – the Harrises of the Massey-Harris industrialists. He attended Central Technical School and St. Andrew’s College. From age 19 (1904 to 1908) he studied in Berlin. He was interested in philosophy and Eastern thought. Later, he became involved in Theosophy and joined the Toronto Lodge of the International Theosophical Society. Lawren went on to marry Beatrice (Trixie) Phillips on January 20, 1910, and together had three children born in the first decade of their marriage. Soon after meeting and becoming friends with J. E. H. MacDonald in 1911, they together formed the Group of Seven. He financed the construction of a studio building in Toronto with friend Dr. James MacCallum. The Studio provided artists with cheap or free space where they worked.

Career

Group of seven artists: Frederick Varley, A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Fairley, Frank Johnston (artist), Arthur Lismer, and J. E. H. MacDonald

In 1918 and 1919, Harris with J. E. H. MacDonald financed boxcar trips for the artists of the Group of Seven to the Algoma region. Another painting trip after Algoma was to Lake Superior‘s North Shore with A.Y. Jackson. Harris was so passionate about the North Shore and fascinated by the theosophical concept of nature, he returned annually for the next seven years. There he developed the style he is best known for. Harris’s paintings in the early 1920s were characterized by rich, decorative colours that were applied thick, in painterly impasto. He painted landscapes around Toronto, Georgian Bay and Algoma. His first trip to the Rockies in 1924 soon became annual, too, for the next three years. In 1930, Harris’s landscape paintings became simplified as he sailed with A.Y. Jackson aboard a supply ship. Several members of the Group of Seven later became members of the Canadian Group of Painters including Harris, A. J. Casson, Arthur Lismer, A. Y. Jackson, and Franklin Carmichael.

Personal life

On January 20, 1910, Harris married Beatrice (Trixie) Phillips. The couple had three children. Harris later fell in love with Bess Housser, the wife of his school-time friend, F.B. Housser. Harris and Bess fell in love, but saw no way forward. For the two to divorce their spouses and marry would cause an outrage.

Harris finally left his wife of 24 years, Trixie, and his three children, and married Bess Housser in 1934. He was threatened with charges of bigamy by Trixie’s family because of his actions. Later that year he and Bess left their home and moved to the United States. Then in 1940 they moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where Harris entered his abstract phase. Bess died in 1969.

Death

Harris died in Vancouver in 1970, a well-known artist. He was buried on the grounds of the McMichael Art Gallery, where his work is now held.

Record sales

On May 29, 2001, Harris’s Baffin Island painting was sold for a record of $2.2 million (record up to that time).[1] Before the auction, experts predicted the painting done by one of the original Group of Seven would top $1 million, but no one expected it to fetch more than twice that amount. The painting, which has always been in private hands, depicts icy white mountains with a dramatic blue sky.

In 2005, Harris’s painting, Algoma Hill was sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $1.38 million. It had been stored in a backroom closet of a Toronto hospital for years and was almost forgotten about until cleaning staff found it.[2]

On May 23, 2007, Pine Tree and Red House, Winter, City Painting II by Harris came up for auction by Heffel Gallery in Vancouver, BC. The painting was a stunning canvas from 1924 that was estimated to sell between $800,000 – $1,200,000. The painting sold for a record-breaking $2,875,000 (premium included).

On November 24, 2008, Harris’s Nerke, Greenland painting sold at a Toronto auction for $2 million (four times the pre-sale estimate).[3]

On November 26, 2009, Harris’s oil sketch, The Old Stump, sold for a record $3.51 million at an auction in Toronto. To date, it is the second-highest amount ever paid at an art auction in Canada and the most ever paid for a Group of Seven (artists) painting.[4]

In May 2010, Harris’s painting, Bylot Island I, sold for $2.8 million at a Heffel Gallery auction in Vancouver.[5]

Group of Seven (artists)

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Frederick Varley, A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Barker Fairley, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, and J. E. H. MacDonald

The Group of Seven, also known as the Algonquin School, was a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933, originally consisting of Franklin Carmichael (1890–1945), Lawren Harris (1885–1970), A. Y. Jackson (1882–1972), Frank Johnston (1888–1949), Arthur Lismer (1885–1969), J. E. H. MacDonald (1873–1932), and Frederick Varley (1881–1969). Later, A. J. Casson (1898–1992) was invited to join in 1926; Edwin Holgate (1892–1977) became a member in 1930; and LeMoine FitzGerald (1890–1956) joined in 1932.

Two artists commonly associated with the group are Tom Thomson (1877–1917) and Emily Carr (1871–1945). Although he died before its official formation, Thomson had a significant influence on the group. In his essay “The Story of the Group of Seven”, Lawren Harris wrote that Thomson was “a part of the movement before we pinned a label on it”; Thomson’s paintings “The West Wind” and “The Jack Pine” are two of the group’s most iconic pieces.[1] Emily Carr was also closely associated with the Group of Seven, though was never an official member.

Believing that a distinct Canadian art could be developed through direct contact with nature,[2] The Group of Seven is most famous for its paintings inspired by the Canadian landscape, and initiated the first major Canadian national art movement.[3] The Group was succeeded by the Canadian Group of Painters in the 1930s, which did include female members.[4]

Collections

Large collections of work from the Group of Seven can be found at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa as well as the Ottawa Art Gallery (home to The Firestone Collection of Canadian Art) and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario. The National Gallery, under the directorship of Eric Brown, was an early institutional supporter of artists associated with the Group, purchasing art from some of their early exhibitions before they had identified themselves officially as the Group of Seven.[5] The Art Gallery of Ontario, in its earlier incarnation as the Art Gallery of Toronto, was the site of their first exhibition as the Group of Seven.[1] The McMichael was founded by Robert and Signe McMichael, who began collecting paintings by the Group of Seven and their contemporaries in 1955.[6]

History

Red Maple, 1914, by A.Y. Jackson

Tom Thomson, J. E. H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley, Frank Johnston and Franklin Carmichael met as employees of the design firm Grip Ltd. in Toronto. In 1913, they were joined by A. Y. (Alexander Young) Jackson and Lawren Harris. They often met at the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto to discuss their opinions and share their art.[1]

This group received monetary support from Harris (heir to the Massey-Harris farm machinery fortune) and Dr. James MacCallum. Harris and MacCallum jointly built the Studio Building in 1914 in the Rosedale ravine to serve as a meeting and working place for the new Canadian art movement. MacCallum owned land on Georgian Bay and Thomson worked as a guide in nearby Algonquin Park, both places where he and the other artists often travelled for inspiration.[7]

Gas Chamber at Seaford a piece of war art by Frederick Varley

The informal group was temporarily split up during World War I, during which Jackson[8] and Varley[9] became official war artists. A further blow to the group came in 1917 when Thomson died while canoeing in Algonquin Park. He appeared to have suffered a blow to the head and showed no signs of drowning. The circumstances of his death remain mysterious.[1]

The seven who formed the original group reunited after the war. They continued to travel throughout Ontario, especially the Muskoka and Algoma regions, sketching the landscape and developing techniques to represent it in art. In 1919, they decided to make themselves into a group devoted to a distinct Canadian form of art which did not exist yet, and began to call themselves the Group of Seven.[7] It is unknown who specifically chose these seven men, but believed to have been Harris.[10] By 1920, they were ready for their first exhibition thanks to the constant support and encouragement of Eric Brown, the director of the National Gallery at that time. Prior to this, many artists believed the Canadian landscape was not worthy of being painted. Reviews for the 1920 exhibition were mixed,[5] but as the decade progressed the Group came to be recognized as pioneers of a new, Canadian, school of art.

After Frank Johnston left the group in 1920 to move to Winnipeg, A. J. Casson was invited to join in 1926.[7] Franklin Carmichael had taken a liking to him and had encouraged Casson to sketch and paint for many years beforehand.

The Group’s champions during its early years included Barker Fairley, a co-founder of Canadian Forum magazine,[11] and the warden of Hart House at the University of Toronto, J. Burgon Bickersteth.

The members of the Group began to travel elsewhere in Canada for inspiration, including British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and the Arctic. After Samuel Gurney Cresswell and other painters on Royal Navy expeditions, these were the first artists of European descent who depicted the Arctic.[citation needed] Soon, the Group made the decision that to be called a “national school of painters” there should be members from outside of Toronto. So, in 1930, Edwin Holgate from Montreal, Quebec became a member and in 1932, also LeMoine Fitzgerald from Winnipeg, Manitoba.[5]

The Group’s influence was so widespread by the end of 1931, and after J.E.H. MacDonald’s death in 1932, they no longer found it necessary to continue as a group of painters. They announced that the Group had been disbanded and that a new association of painters would be formed, known as the Canadian Group of Painters. The Canadian Group—which eventually consisted of the majority of Canada’s leading artists—held its first exhibition in 1933, and continued to hold exhibitions almost every year as a successful society until 1967.

Other notes

The Group of Seven has received criticism for its reinforcement of terra nullius presenting the region as pristine and untouched by humans when in fact the areas depicted have been lived on for many centuries.[12]

In 1995, the National Gallery of Canada compiled a Group of Seven retrospective show, for which they commissioned the Canadian rock band Rheostatics to write a musical score. That score was released on album as Music Inspired by the Group of Seven.

Six members of the group, A.Y. Jackson,[13] Arthur Lismer,[14] Frederick Varley,[15] Lawren Harris,[16] Frank Johnston,[17] and A.J. Casson[18] along with four of the artists’ wives are buried onsite at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in the small patch of consecrated land bordered by trees, with graves marked by large chunks of the Canadian Shield.

Recognition

On 18 September 1970 Canada Post issued ‘The Group of Seven’ designed by Allan Robb Fleming based on a painting “Isles of Spruce” (1922) by Arthur Lismer in the Hart House Permanent Collection, University of Toronto. The 6¢ stamps are perforated 11 and were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited.[19]

On 29 June 1995, Canada Post issued 10 stamps, each based on a painting of each member of the group (7 original members and 3 new members):

  • Francis Hans Johnston, “Serenity, Lake of the Woods“[20]
  • Arthur Lismer, “A September Gale, Georgian Bay“[21]
  • James Edward Hervey MacDonald, “Falls, Montreal River“[22]
  • Frederick Horsman Varley, “Open Window“[23]
  • Franklin Carmichael, “October Gold“[24]
  • Lawren Stewart Harris, “North of Lake Superior“[25]
  • Alexander Young Jackson, “Evening, Les Éboulements“[26]
  • Alfred Joseph Casson, “Mill Houses“[27]
  • Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald, “Pembina Valley“[28]
  • Edwin Headley Holgate, “The Lumberjack“[29]

On year 2012–2013, Royal Canadian Mint issued 7 pure silver 1-oz coins, each one reproduced one painting of a member:[30]

  • F.H. Varley “Stormy Weather, Georgian Bay” (April 2012)[31]
  • Arthur Lismer “Nova Scotia Fishing Village” (July 2012)[32]
  • Franklin Carmichael “Houses, Cobalt” (October 2012)[33]
  • Lawren S. Harris “Toronto Street, Winter Morning” (January 2013)[34]
  • Franz Johnston “The Guardian of the Gorge” (March 2013)[35]
  • J.E.H. MacDonald “Sumacs” (June 2013)
  • A.Y. Jackson “Saint-Tite-des-Caps” (September 2013)