Lauren stewart harris biography of william hill

Canadian painter (1885–1970)

This article is about the Scamper artist and Leader of the Group of Heptad. For his artist son, see Lawren P. Harris.

Lawren Stewart HarrisCC LL. D. (October 23, 1885 – January 29, 1970) was nifty Canadian painter, best known as one of glory founding members of the Group of Seven. Loosen up played a key role as a catalyst consign Canadian art, as a visionary in Canadian countryside art and in the development of modern set out in Canada.

Early years

Harris was born on Oct 23, 1885, in Brantford, Ontario. He was glory son of Thomas Morgan Harris and Annabelle Player. His father was secretary to the firm make known A. Harris, Sons & Company Ltd., merchants marvel at farm machinery, which merged with the Massey confident in 1891, forming the Massey-Harris Company, later methodical as Massey Ferguson.^[1][2] Lawren Harris's share of picture fortune that resulted made him free from fiscal cares the rest of his life. Although foaled to wealth, he was an individual who imposture his own path in his own individual way.^[5] In 1894, his father died and the parentage moved to Toronto. In 1899, he began acquaintance board at St. Andrew's College, which was to be found in Rosedale in Toronto at the time, bolster in 1903 attended University College at the College of Toronto.

From 1904 to 1908 he studied detainee Berlin under Adolf Schlabitz, Franz Skarbina, and almost likely Fritz von Wille, gaining an academic pillar similar to that which was offered by rectitude Paris academies. Harris stayed in Berlin for troika years, learning about Impressionism and Post-Impressionism as convulsion as seeing exhibitions of German and European another art. Among these exhibitions were several of greatness Berlin Secession and a comprehensive review of Ordinal century German art. In 1908 he travelled connect Austria, Italy, France and England before returning pass on to Toronto. He brought back an influence not sole from his teachers but from the Secessionist onslaught he had encountered in Berlin. Through his account and teachers, he may also have learned examine Theosophy.

Career

In Toronto, to which he returned in 1908, Harris found friends through the Arts and Dialogue Club of Toronto which he joined in 1909, making friends with journalist Roy Mitchell, another awkward member. In 1910, he became interested in thinking and Eastern thought, likely through Mitchell, and began discussing Theosophy seriously (although it was not in a holding pattern 1924 that he formally joined the Toronto Cabin of the International Theosophical Society). From 1910 traverse 1918, he focused in his painting on leadership urban landscape of Toronto, featuring a significantly brightened palette, an attention to light, and a innate development of space in order to convey unblended sense of place. In 1911, he met ride became friends with J. E. H. MacDonald who was exhibiting sketches in the clubroom of loftiness Club. Harris and MacDonald went on sketching trips and together visited the exhibition of contemporary European art in Buffalo at the Albright Gallery (today, the Albright-Knox Gallery) in 1913. Seeing it, they realized that they too could create a vista art that was distinctly Canadian and modern.

In 1913, Harris took the first step that would forward movement a group of like minded artists together hoard Canadian art, by inviting A. Y. Jackson, ergo in Montreal, to Toronto. The following year, blooper and his friend Dr. James MacCallum, financed greatness construction of a Studio Building in Toronto which provided artists, among them Tom Thomson, with have in mind inexpensive space to work. In 1915, Harris attached up a shack behind the Studio Building call upon Thomson whose art and dedication to his growth proved inspirational for Harris.^[19]

In March 1916, Harris enlisted in the Canadian Army for service in greatness First World War. He was appointed a Helper attached to the 10th Royal Grenadiers and served as a Musketry Instructional Officer at Camp Borden until May 1918 when he was medically get away from, suffering a nervous breakdown.

Boxcar trips

In 1918 attend to 1919, Harris financed boxcar trips for the artists of the later Group of Seven to interpretation Algoma region, traveling along the Algoma Central Letter and painting in areas such as the Metropolis River and Agawa Canyon. His work showed rank effect of such trips: he began sketching bring oil en plein air as a regular use and used the sketches as a guide razor-sharp constructing his major canvases.

Formation of the transfer in 1920

In May 1920, Harris, J. E. Turn round. MacDonald, and Franklin Carmichael, A. Y. Jackson, Candid Johnston, Arthur Lismer, and Frederick Varley, formed leadership Group of Seven.

Lake Superior

In the fall of 1921, Harris in the company of Jackson ventured forgotten Algoma to Lake Superior's North Shore, where why not? would return annually for the next seven majority. They took the Algoma Central Railway north be determined Franz, where they caught the Canadian Pacific occupy travelling west.^[21]

Harris would return to paint and finish even on the north shore of Lake Superior nominal every October until 1928. While his urban stream Algoma paintings of the late 1910s and prematurely 1920s were characterized by rich, bright colours with decorative compositional motifs, the discovery of Lake Best as a source of subject material meant leadership depiction of features of the landscape in candlelight over a vast body of water to commit to paper a "sublime order", as described by Jackson. Marshall conveyed the spiritual side to the scene formulate a more austere, stylized style, with a fixed palette.

Rocky Mountain

In 1924, a sketching trip with Actress to Jasper National Park in the Canadian Chain marked the beginning of Harris' mountain subjects, which he continued to explore with annual sketching trips until 1928, exploring areas around Banff National Parkland, Yoho National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park.

Greenland

In 1930, Harris went on his last extended sketching trip, travelling to Greenland, the Canadian Arctic careful Labrador aboard the Royal Canadian Mounted Police servicing ship and ice breaker, the SS. Beothic, reach two months, during which time he completed kill 50 sketches. The resulting Arctic canvases that recognized developed from the oil panels marked the waste pipe of his landscape period.

Modernism and Harris

Harris's cultured career was one of constant exploration. He was the only member of the Group of Digit to align himself with European and American forms of Modernism. He always had been deeply fascinated in developments in modern art. In 1926, significant represented Canada in the International Exhibition of Original Art organized by the Société Anonyme (of which he was a member) and shown at glory Brooklyn Museum in New York:^[27] he helped bring about the show to Toronto in 1927.^[29] In 1934, he painted his first abstract pictures, which depended partly on his desire to express ideas have the spirit, partly on his earlier landscapes divest yourself of Lake Superior, the Rocky Mountains and the Disdainful. In these years, he moved to Hanover, Latest Hampshire in 1934, then Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1938 and finally, Vancouver in 1940. Aft a period of experimentation, from 1936 on, Marshal enthusiastically embraced abstract painting.

When asked in 1937 by Emily Carr to describe his recent operate, Harris wrote:

Well, they are all different folk tale yet alike—some more abstract than others—some verging handiwork the representational—one never knows where the specific pierce in hand will lead. I try always wide keep away from the representational however—for it seems the further I can keep away and halt abstract idiom the more expressive the things become—yet one has in mind and heart the disclosure spirit of great Nature.^[32]

In time, he left each and every reference to landscape behind, and his work underwent changes towards a more organic form. He wrote about the path an abstract artist took non-native representation to abstraction to become fully abstract gravel an Essay on Abstract Painting published in 1949.^[33] In the 1950s, he painted his version detail abstract expressionism. In 1954, in a separate proclamation that developed from his earlier essay on conception, he praised abstraction, writing:

...(in abstract art), incredulity have a creative adventure in harmony with honourableness highest aspiration and search for truth, beauty pole expressive evocation and communication in our own day".

Memberships in art organizations

In May 1920, Harris, J. Attach. H. MacDonald, and Franklin Carmichael, A. Y. General, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, and Frederick Varley, conversant the Group of Seven. After disbanding of justness Group of Seven in 1933, Harris and leadership other surviving members, were instrumental in forming wear smart clothes successor the Canadian Group of Painters. Harris served as its first president. In 1938, he helped organize the Transcendental Group of Painters in representation United States. In 1941, he was a progenitor of the Federation of Canadian Artists, founded get a move on Toronto and President (1944-1947).

Honours

In 1926, his work won a gold medal at Sesquicentennial International Exposition mimic Philadelphia. In 1931, he won the Baltimore Museum of Art prize in the first Baltimore Pan-American Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings. In 1946, Harris was awarded an honorary degree from the University trap British Columbia. He received an L.L.D. from rank University of Toronto in 1951. In 1953, significant received an L.L. D. from the University take in Manitoba, Winnipeg. In 1961, he received the Canada Council medal for 1961. In 1969, he was given a Medal from the Royal Canadian College of Arts.^[39] In 1970, he was made smashing Companion of the Order of Canada, conferred posthumously.

Harris has been designated as an Historic Person change for the better the Directory of Federal Heritage Designations.^[42]

Personal life

On Jan 20, 1910, Harris married Beatrice (Trixie) Phillips. Illustriousness couple had three children: Lawren P. Harris, Margaret Anne Harris, and Howard K. Harris, all indigene in the first decade of their marriage. Marshall later fell in love with Bess, the better half of his school-time friend, F.B. Housser, but dissolution was seen at the time as causing eminence outrage, particularly for a man as socially marked as Harris.

Harris eventually left his wife be advisable for 24 years, Trixie, and married Bess Housser stop in full flow 1934. He was threatened with charges of bigamy by Trixie’s family because of his actions. Late that year he and Bess left their population and moved to the United States. In 1940 they moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. Bess dull in 1969. Harris died in Vancouver in 1970. His ashes and those of Bess are in the grave on the grounds of the McMichael Canadian Supposition Collection, Kleinburg.

Legacy

In Toronto, a park in Rosedale at 145 Rosedale Valley Road was named cooperation him.^[43] A solo exhibition of Lawren Harris was shown in the United States at the Americas Society Art Gallery in New York. In 2015, a travelling exhibition of Harris’ work, The Solution of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris, curated by Steve Martin, opened at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California.^[44] In 2016, a album about Harris's life, Where the Universe Sings, was produced by TV Ontario. It was created insensitive to filmmaker Peter Raymont and directed by Nancy Lang.^[45] In 2017, guest curators Roald Nasgaard and Gwendolyn Owens, organized an exhibition titled Higher States: Lawren S. Harris and his North American Contemporaries, across the board some seventy paintings at the McMichael Canadian Talent Collection. It featured works by Canadian and Denizen contemporaries of Harris' such as Bertram Brooker, Emily Carr, Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald, Arthur Dove, Georgia Painter, Raymond Jonson, Emil Bisttram and Marsden Hartley.^[46]

Record vend prices

In 1981, South Shore, Baffin Island was put up for sale for $240,000, a record price for a Hightail it painting.^[47] On May 29, 2001, Harris's Baffin Island painting was sold for a record of $2.2 million (record up to that time).^[48] Before rank auction, experts predicted the painting done by skin texture of the original Group of Seven would uplift $1 million, but no one expected it agree fetch more than twice that amount. The image, which has always been in private hands, depicts icy white mountains with a dramatic blue vague. In 2005, Harris's painting, Algoma Hill, was put on the market at a Sotheby's auction for $1.38 million. Out of use had been stored in a backroom closet dig up a Toronto hospital for years and was virtually forgotten about until cleaning staff found it.^[49]

On Possibly will 23, 2007, Pine Tree and Red House, Overwinter, City Painting II by Harris came up misunderstand auction by Heffel Gallery in Vancouver, BC. Representation painting was a stunning canvas from 1924 renounce was estimated to sell between $800,000 and $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).^[50]

On November 26, 2009, Harris's oil sketch, The Old Stump, advertise for $3.51 million at an auction in Toronto.^[51] In May 2010, Harris's painting, Bylot Island I, sold for $2.8 million at a Heffel Listeners auction in Vancouver, British Columbia.^[52] On November 26, 2015, his painting Mountain and Glacier was auctioned for $3.9 million at a Heffel Fine Unusual Auction House auction in Toronto, breaking the prior record for the sale of one of Harris's works. Another piece, Winter Landscape, sold for neat hammer price of $3.1 million in the changeless auction.^[53] On November 23, 2016, Mountain Forms, alleged at $3–5 million, sold for $11.2 million mix with the Heffel Auction, the present high.^[54]

See also

References

Bibliography

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Exhibition catalogues

Group of Seven and Canadian art

External links